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TeamPlayer360 the new voice for recruitment ISSUE 1 . MAY 2014

City Recruitment and Rugby Lions collide in Ibiza World cup winning legend Phil Vickery teams up with city recruiter to invite corporate rugby teams and supporters to head out to Ibiza with him and RugbySpy 6-8 June.

Why do we turn to recruitment agents when we need a job, and why do those of us who work in recruitment do it? Bottom line it’s about getting the right person for the right job, it’s about putting the right people with the right team, it’s also about making a difference to a

company and to an individual.

It’s easy to forget this when we are bogged down with CVs, administration, databases, cold calling, contracts, shouty bosses, rushing across the city to make the third networking event in the day while battling broken heels and lunch-spattered ties. It was therefore with real interest that we spoke with the dynamic whirlwind that is Abby Edwards who runs JHA Recruitment Consultancy, right next to the Gherkin in London.

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Left to right: Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath, British Army, England Saxons), Tom Varndell (London Wasps, England and England Sevens), Abby Edwards (MD of JHA Recruitment, CEO RugbySpy), Darrell Ball (British Army), and Ricky Reeves (on secondment from the British Army now at London Wasps)

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TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

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What’s inside

TeamPlayer360 the new voice for recruitment

News City Recruitment and Rugby Lions collide in Ibiza ............................1 News in Brief....................................................................................4-7

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Editor Vanessa Champion vanessachampion@teamplayer360.com Web editor David Bevan david@teamplayer360.com Publisher Emblem Group Ltd info@emblemgroup.co.uk Distribution enquiries Emblem Group Ltd info@emblemgroup.co.uk Advertising sales@teamplayer360.com Design The Kavli Advertising Ltd info@thekavli.com Printing Print Media Solutions Ltd newsfax@hotmail.co.uk Tel: 07725429206 (Mohammed ) *Any third party offers are made at the discretion of the third party and not those of TeamPlayer360. *All views expressed by individuals in the newspaper are their own and not those of TeamPlayer360. ©2014 All rights reserved on behalf of the authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission must be addressed to TeamPlayer360.

For details on our contributors please see www.teamplayer360.com

Send feedback, letters and notes to editor@teamplayer360.com or visit www.teamplayer.360.com

So welcome to the first issue of TeamPlayer360, a new voice for recruitment and the sectors only free monthly printed newspaper for jobseekers and HR industry professionals. TeamPlayer360 covers topics core to the HR Industry as well as highlighting various market sectors, news, help and advice, graduate placement, internships, employment law, employers, management, leadership, training and much more. I lead a lively and robust group of recruitment professionals, press experts and specialist journalists.

Why did we launch a newspaper when everyone is digital? It’s just for that reason.

Do you find yourself inundated with online content, emails, electronic marketing, mobile content, videos? We spend our life staring at screens, and to engage in news and things that matter in a different, more tactile format. A printed newspaper is such a relief. This is a fresh approach to recruitment and an accessible voice for jobseekers.

With the average turnover of staff rate expected to leap from 14% to 18% in the next few years reaching 4.7 million in 2018 and with 2.24 million unemployed in the UK today , there are over 8000 recruitment houses in the UK , the newspaper is aiming to fill a significant gap to get both sides interacting.

We have a 50,000 copy print run of TeamPlayer360 distribution across one with over one thousand direct industry points, including London and major city stations, HR Directors, CEOs, hotels, leisure centres.

People wanting a copy can order through the Emblem Group contact below.

We are keeping the voice of the paper “conversational intelligent” and we hope that the classy design, the perceptive and relaxed content and the pleasure of the newspaper’s reading experience will make TeamPlayer360 an important addition on the monthly ‘must-read’ media circuit.

We are turning the trend on its head and producing a high quality PRINTED newspaper. TeamPlayer360 is a unique and important new voice for HR professionals and Jobseekers and provides a platform for the industry helping to build an important interactive bridge between both sides of the playing field. We hope you enjoy the read.

Write to us and let us know what you think or indeed you might like to contribute!

Editor, Vanessa Champion London, May 2014

Recruitment Process ............................................................................9 Diversity.............................................................................................23 Leadership training ............................................................................24 Employment law ...............................................................................28 International ......................................................................................30

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Recruitment Tools ...............................................................................8 Recruitment Technology.....................................................................10 Networking ........................................................................................12 Behavioural Science...........................................................................22 Travel and Tourism.............................................................................34

Features Social Media......................................................................................13 Onboarding........................................................................................14 Interview with David Schneider, TV comedian and social media expert....26 China..................................................................................................32

The Pulse Graduate, internships, apprenticeships, starting out, first job, new talent....15

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TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Celebrity Rugby Appearance for the wounded servicemen and women at Headley Court Left to Right Fergus Farrell (captain of Teddington first XV and area manager for British Lion’s Phil Vickery’s Raging Bull sportswear company), Rick Reeves signing RugbySpy tee shirt (on secondment from the British Army and on contract at London Wasps) and Tom Varndell (English rugby union footballer who plays for London Wasps, England and England Sevens). Photos and interview Vanessa Champion

What happens when City Recruitment, the Happy Mondays and Rugby Lions collide in Ibiza?

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As I sat in the offices of JHA Recruitment waiting for Abby Edwards to arrive, I was conjuring imaginary glass patchwork quilts out of the Gherkin’s windows as it loomed shoulder level with me, and contemplated this woman who, originally from Manchester, is running this successful (and I witnessed, incredibly busy) recruitment agency in the city. I wondered why the devil she came up with the idea of taking a bunch of beefy rugby guys to Ibiza?

Predominantly city-based, covering financial and professional services, JHA Recruitment is growing across the board, with more positivity and market confidence. “After the banking crash the market has been forced to be more accountable,” Abby says. “We listen, assess and then act. It’s important that everyone is treated as an individual not just a number on a list. Only when that process has been completed can we find the best solution to the needs of our clients and applicants.”

So what’s all this about Ibiza, England Lions, Raging Bull, 5,000 spectators, RugbySpy and Headley Court? “Over the summer there is a lot of festival rugby, basically parties combined with running around with a ball. Ibiza is an ideal location. The idea came up as a result of a discussion with a couple of players and we realised that this had long term potential. This is our second year. We hold it in the main football

stadium in Ibiza Town. It’s a difficult place to work, as it’s very seasonal and it’s hard to get people to anything as a long term prospect. Having said that, hard work and bloody mindedness has gone a long way. We have a five year license to run the event and it’s becoming more commercial too. Am always looking for partners.”

Tom Varndell, Chester Williams, Oriol Ripol, Chris Mayhor, Jack Cuthbert played in 2013, and this year the Ibiza Tens will have more teams from a variety of backgrounds, including France, UK, military… “This year we will be supporting Headley Court which is the centre that works on the rehabilitation of our Armed forces injured during service.” Covered recently by ITV and the media, Abby is a dynamo and a no nonsense woman after my own heart. I was really heartened to hear a non-stereotypical reply to a comment about her being a woman in a man’s world. “On the whole people are decent but you do get the occasional set who treat you as if you’re a bit thick and have encountered ‘head-patting’, but I find charm and then going into a darkened room and shouting helps with that. In terms of advice to others, I’d say stick with it and don’t take it personally, it just means you have to be a bit more resourceful and think laterally. I have heard so many people crying in their beer about being marginalised and discriminated against. Truthfully, it

The three-day event includes elite, veteran and women’s teams, runs from Friday 6 June 2014 and promises to combine the best of Ibiza with the best of rugby.

Phil Vickery

Tom Varndell

is harder yes, but for every idiot who pushes against you, there’s someone else who will help you. So when that opportunity presents itself, grasp it and make the best of it rather than questioning it. Make the people who have supported you proud and then do the same for someone else… pass it back!”

World Cup winning legend Phil Vickery said: “Everyone’s idea of Ibiza is the clubs, the raves, the money, the expense, the glamour and the boats.

Let’s go over in 2014 with more to offer, more teams: women’s and men’s of all experience levels and show them what our game is about…... having a good time but knowing the limits.

We can go over there and break down barriers by showing the values the game and the supporters hold dear.”

The three-day event includes elite, veteran and women’s teams, runs from Friday 6 June 2014 and promises to combine the best of Ibiza with the best of rugby.

I asked Abby what she needed for this year’s event more than anything.

“Commercial sponsorship for 2014 would be great but a bit late now, what we really want are people to come out to Ibiza and enjoy themselves and support the rugby, bring their corporate teams and also support the charity back here on home turf by donating their time.”

Anthony Cooper, recovering soldier at Headley Court who is heading out to Ibiza with the rugby teams

I wonder how many of our readers have company rugby teams? Great team building, PR and networking opportunity is afforded for anyone participating, spaces are still available.

To book tickets and get involved as volunteer, sponsor or send your own corporate rugby team out to Ibiza contact Abby Edwards at www. rugbyspy.com (Ibiza and London sport event management company, which has ex and current rugby professionals on board as ambassadors). Send your corporate rugby team out to Ibiza in June, or donate a few hours to have a laugh, support and maybe inspire the guys from Headley Court.

For recruitment, job seeker registration and advice give her a call or visit www.jha-recruitment.co.uk

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Illustration by: Fitzy

Fitzy’s Review

When in France In France a new labour agreement has been signed instructing workers to ignore work emails once they have left the office.

Targeting one million employees at digital and consultancy companies the agreement seeks to ensure workers ‘disconnect’ from their work and aren’t endlessly replying to emails long into the night eating into downtime during the week.

The move is designed to improve the work life balance and enforce the French 35 hour working week introduced in 1999, providing one more reason for Britons to gaze longingly across the Channel with the comparatively draconian 48 hour restrictions enforced in the UK through the European Working Time Directive. Duncan Proctor

Wages increase by 1.7% Wages are set to surpass inflation for the first time since 2008, according to the spring forecast by the EY ITEM Club. Figures for this year suggest wages will increase by 1.7% while inflation will continue to drop reaching 1.6%. The spring forecast also predicted consistently falling levels of unemployment in the UK over the next two years, from the current level of 7.2% to 6% by the end of 2015.

Peter Spencer, EY ITEM Club Chief Economic Advisor, commented that wage increases will be tempered by growth in the workplace, however “not to the extent of impeding recovery in real wages”. DP

PayDay Loan companies cash in on companies paying expenses late Late expenses payments are costing workers in the UK £2.1bn, affecting 46 million with employees losing on average £45 per year through bank charges incurred whilst chasing expenses. A further loss of income is due to 40% of workers losing receipts for expenses, which equates to a collective loss of £512.5m per year.

The survey of 2,000 workers by Access Group found nearly half of those surveyed (46%) have suffered financial difficulties due to employers paying expense claims late or not at all. The survey also revealed that 13.5% of workers have had to cut back on food and other basics,

with a further 8.6% falling behind on rent and mortgage payments. This has created the perfect conditions for payday loan companies with 8% of workers in the survey turning to lenders. DP

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TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Graduate Salaries decline There has been a sharp decline in starting salaries for graduates, according to research

by The Complete University Guide. Average starting salaries for graduates fell by £2,500 from £24,293 to £21,702 between 2007-12, whilst in the same time tuition fees have trebled.

The highest paid graduate occupation is still Dentistry, but even this industry saw a 9% drop in average earnings for graduates to £30,681. A further worrying trend is the rate of decline in salaries is accelerating, based on returns to the DLHE (Destination of Leavers from Higher Education). The previous survey for graduate starting salaries showed a 4% decrease for 2005-10, which has jumped to 11% for 2007-12.

However if you’re looking for a recessionproof sector, Material Technology did particularly well showing a healthy 13% increase in starting salary during the survey period and perhaps surprisingly Librarianship and Information Management also showed a 3% increase. DP

Appraisals kick-start the Flight Mechanism Annual appraisals don’t work, according to Lucy Adams, the former HR director at the BBC. Instead they strike fear into employees, leave them feeling threatened and their status challenged. She added that the assertion of appraisals increasing productivity was a myth. This was not just a parting shot from a former employee of the corporation but a view backed by neurological research. According to Adams, the appraisal process kick-starts the flight mechanism in the brain making workers less effective. The recruiters Badenoch & Clark conducted a survey in 2012 which concluded more than a third of workers thought appraisals were simply a token exercise. All in all appreciation for the appraisal process appears hard to come by from managers and employees alike.

Another more frequent criticism of the BBC in recent years has been the lack of leadership within the hierarchy and Adams believes a better focus would be on leadership capability and ensuring managers know their team and create their own reward framework to get the most out of people.

Following the departure of Lucy Adams, the BBC announced Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth, currently HR director at Amey, will replace Adams in August. DP

THE NEW ARABIC VOICE IN LONDON JUNE 2014

NEWSPAPER

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Illustration by: Fitzy

Fitzy’s Review

Female Personnel lose confidence in the British Army Madeleine Moon, the influential Labour MP on the Commons Defence Select Committee, has spoken out on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme about female personnel within the British Army and how they are suffering a ‘culture of fear’.

She claims that women in the service are tolerating high levels of bullying and harassment to keep their career and working relationships on an even keel. Moon is tirelessly campaigning for more help lines for personnel in order for them to forge complaints anonymously. She said ‘There seems to be a total denial of its existence and they (the Army) hide behind terms such as banter and horseplay’. In fact, complaints within the service relating to harassment, bullying and discrimination accounted for 43 per cent of all allegations during 2012, an increase of a third compared to the previous year. Zoey Ambrose

Vacancy Informer launches dynamic job search engine A recently launched recruitment and job search engine, Vacancy Informer www. vacancyinformer.com is a new tool for those seeking new employment, a change in career or an alternative to their current position. With over 3,000 companies offering jobs through Vacancy Informer, together with a completely integrated and interactive market approach, this new job search engine is establishing itself as a new recruitment and vacancy portal.

A company spokesperson said, “Vacancy Informer takes an entirely new approach that offers candidates much greater transparency about the companies that are hiring. The candidate can see exactly what is on offer and from which company. This allows them to research the company fully to make an informed choice before applying for a job.”

Vacancy Informer is both different and

dynamic in that it offers candidates full control over their job application process.

In fact, unlike many job boards, Vacancy Informer does not require a candidate’s CV or control their application process.

Candidates can search and apply for vacancies posted on the site at any time and can also sign up to be alerted about direct employers and recruitment agencies.

Having set up the alerts, new vacancies are sent straight to the candidate’s PC, laptop, iPad or other mobile device. Social media and networking is utilised in order to attract ‘passive’ candidates. Vacancies are distributed alongside relevant conversational content according to the located candidate preference, thus broadening the recruitment catchment potential significantly.

Recruiters and candidates alike benefit

from this new integrated approach. Vacancy Informer broadcasts vacancies to active candidates who are searching for and wish to be notified of a particular type of role.

Mobile recruitment also offers users a more practical service. Vacancy Informer therefore offers true interactivity between candidate and those who are recruiting, as well as much greater efficiency and accuracy for both candidates and those who are hiring.

The new search engine provides recruiters with an effective way to reach candidates who will then apply to vacancies via email, Automated Tracking System (ATS) or some other preferred method of application. The whole approach of Vacancy Informer is clearly driven by the acknowledgement that new technology, market experience and transparency must all work together in order that the right candidates are attracted to the most suitable positions.

The site itself is of clean design, efficient and easy to use, allowing full use to be made of all the advanced facilities offered.

Candidates and recruiters can create their own account on the Vacancy Informer website: www.vacancyinformer.com

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Business Owners need to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ A recent study undertaken by research firm Gallup has identified that only 17 per cent of UK employees would describe themselves as motivated and engaged. Peter Flade, Gallup’s managing partner for Europe, claims there are several key issues attributing to unmotivated staff, highest on the list being a lack of understanding the need to involve and inspire leaders. Instead, Flade says, companies make the fatal mistake of focussing on junior staff and ignoring the requirements of their Managers.

Many organisations have been hit by the economic downturn but Gallup’s research has also highlighted that this can often simply be an excuse and that by remaining positive and upbeat, it is possible to maintain a positive and engaged workforce. Flade also insists that it is paramount to have a solid and well-functioning HR department as the backbone of any organisation and has deduced from his recent survey of over 600,000 employees over five years that the companies with the most engaged employees had HR departments who were second to none in teaching and influencing staff. ZA

Trota scoops first place at PT Awards Sarah Trota, executive director of people and business transformation at Circle Housing is the well deserving winner of 2014 Personnel Today HR director of the year. With her modest and endearing approach, Trota said she put her prestigious win down to her incredible team and dedicated her gleaming trophy to them saying “You’re only as successful as the people you work with.”

Remarkably, by undertaking a thorough review of HR processes, Trota and her team have succeeded in delivering £1.5 million in efficiency improvements and will save £120 million over 10 years thanks to the changes to repair and maintenance.

A huge highlight for Trota in Circle’s successful transformation is her pride in developing leaders, where senior managers can improve their overall understanding of the business through a series of events named the ‘Leadership Space’. Through this initiative, leadership engagement has made a significant leap from 50% to 80%. Circle’s success is reflected in their impressive workforce where half of the executive team worked their way through the ranks whilst internal promotions in the leadership population have seen a rise of 60%. But perhaps one of the most memorable achievements at Circle is the fact that the company prides itself on a 100% return rate for women on maternity leave making it a formidable option for long-term career progression of women. ZA

Corporate Social Responsibility to tackle skills shortages head on

Employers across the country are wising up to addressing the skills shortages issue within their workforce by offering jobs, training and work experience to unemployed youths and disadvantaged people. In turn, this marks a highly beneficial impact on their business by raising the profile of the company and its future growth as well as enriching the talent and expertise of their staff. Barclays are a prime example with their ground breaking apprenticeship scheme which was introduced in 2012 and has recently won the prestigious Personnel

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Today Award for its youth development in 2013.

Another company that have tapped into this idea are Jaguar Land Rover who were recently named Responsible Business of the Year 2013 by Business in the Community.

Jonathan Garrett, Director of JLR and the brains behind the company’s programme ‘Inspiring tomorrow’s engineers’, says “It is critical that we attract talented young people to become the next generation of engineers and technologists to support our ambitious growth plans”. ZA

The Recruitment Strategy Company Abtech Partnership works with recruiters, talent managers and HR Directors to ensure that your company’s technology and processes align to deliver the right candidates in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Call Alan Whitford on 07971 864620 to discuss how we can help you today.

• Recruitment strategies, including social media and business networking • Applicant Tracking Systems/Candidate Relationship Management Systems • Candidate sourcing channels • Creating and enhancing your Employment Brand Email: Tel: Web: Twitter: LinkedIn:

alan@abtechpartnership.com 07971 864620 at any time www.abtechpartnership.com @alanwhitford http://uk.linkedin.com/in/alanwhitford

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Focus on..

Recruitment Tools It is Time to Quit Guessing

W

hen it is time to match a candidate to a job, it becomes Draft Day at your organization.

You have a Divergent list of candidates.

The economics of Moneyball are in play and you wish you had a magical Hogwart’s Sorting Hat ceremony to make use of the wearer’s mind to clarify the right placement decision. Yes, indeed, great movies have given us some insight into match strategies that have succeeded for plot lines, but what can we learn from them about our matching challenges, and how does TeamplayerHR change everything? [illo Hogwarts sorting hat with question mark under or over it] Every HR arena is a stadium where executives are facing teambuilding decisions – like Sonny Weaver in Draft Day - attempting to land the #1 NFL draft pick, he is faced with the analytical angst of known skill sets that aren’t congruent with gut feelings about the guy being a cultural mis“fit.” He’s struggling for a reference point to inform his misgivings.

In Divergent, one’s entire life is determined by which value-based faction one is matched with on Choosing Day. Aptitude tests may show how the brain is hard-wired but aren’t conclusive in defining the intrinsic values of an unchangeable identity. Clearly, there is more to the “true self” than a few immutable classes.

Harry Potter found his Hogwart’s House

when the Sorting Hat placed on his head teased out his thought processes, making one wonder whether any such rational method of placement exists. Today’s HR executives explore a candidate’s use of social media to gauge their feelings about things. Then, it all comes down to a “guess,” an intuition, an attempt to project success from the numbers, the known skill sets a candidate possesses.

In Moneyball, Billy Beane used statistical analysis to build better ball-teams. He bought players who were undervalued - having assets like a higher on-base percentage, and pink-slipped the overvalued sluggers. Voila – winning seasons. Most teams have learned that lesson by now, but the next generation of matching intelligence is now here: Teamplayer HR It’s time to quit guessing. It’s time to measure the soft skills that create successful engagement. The real goal is making a placement choice based on this measure, a person’s “Im” (“eem”), the “I am” of intrinsic indicators that move decisionmaking from a “guess” to the actual degree of commonality a candidate has with a placement opportunity. TeamplayerHR is that tool.

Jim Lanas, Group CEO, www.teamplayerhr.com To register interest for a trial contact Jim.

Each client has a taste, and we love to taste it.

Our team had the opportunity to work closely with the listed brands, developed marketing and communication strategies that had successfully met the clients’ objectives.

www.thekavli.com

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TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Recruitment Process ARE YOU LOOKING TO ATTRACT TOP TALENT IN YOUR INDUSTRY? Brad Shackleton, international speaker and motivational coach, looks at the challenges companies face in today’s highly competitive market to attract top talent into their organisations. The first in a series of “how to’s”.

A

s a consequence of the ever increasing growth in our economy, the need to attract the best candidates in the market has never been greater. Having consulted for numerous companies around the world across a wide variety of industries from financial services, law, to sales and marketing, to HR and Recruitment, this is currently one of the greatest challenges that all business owners and hiring managers are facing.

From my experiences, the primary reason for this underlying challenge comes down to the quality and efficiency and / or ‘inefficiency’ of their recruitment and hiring process. It is these two factors that will determine a company’s ability to attract, hire and retain the highest calibre of candidates into their organisations.

For the majority of clients that I speak to, recruitment is usually one of the biggest thorns in their side. It is often seen as an ‘inconvenience’, and a distraction from a line manager’s or director’s day to day responsibilities.

It’s okay to admit it, but I might suggest that very few of you would scream from the rooftops “I love recruitment!”

That’s okay, but as a consequence it could be this lack of true and genuine enthusiasm and passion for the process that could be detrimentally affecting the quality and calibre of candidate that you are currently hiring; the end result for companies being poor quality yet expensive hires yielding a very low return on a company’s investment of time, money and effort.

Some of the key symptoms in your business that may sound familiar include: 1. A rushed hiring process and too often a “last minute” haste to find someone half suitable.

2. HR often feel they do not get the sufficient time they need with a hiring manager to discuss in full both the job description and the desired candidate resulting in a lack of vital

information to forward to recruiters, resulting in much time and effort being wasted by all parties further down the line.

9. A potentially long and drawn out process due to poor planning, indecision and possible procrastination over making a decision resulting in the loss of a potentially very good candidate to a competitor and the start of the recruitment process once more for both HR and the hiring manager.

3. Job descriptions are often dull and lack the ‘sell’ to attract high calibre candidates. Too often the job description is all about what the candidate will be required to do for the employer, but very little about what the employer will be offering the candidate in the process i.e. “where’s the opportunity??!!”

4. A lack of desire to deal with recruitment agencies due to the high volume of CV’s companies fear they will receive, of which a high proportion of those CV’s may well be totally inaccurate and unsuitable.

5. Poor presentation of CV’s by recruitment suppliers and a lack of in depth understanding by these recruiters about the candidates.

6. A laborious interview process for both the hiring manager and candidate too often a result of a line manager’s insufficient preparation for the interview regarding structure, informative content and informative questioning.

7. A line manager’s possible inexperience at knowing how to ‘interview effectively’ and therefore an inability to fully qualify a candidates ability to do the job (often a costly mistake of both time and money that too often rears its ugly head once the candidate has already started in the position) 8. Employee / team interviewers lacking the confidence and knowledge of ‘how to interview effectively’ on behalf of their line manager and team, and which if the candidate is to meet the whole ‘team’ means a high probability of repeat questioning and therefore a repetitive and potentially dull and laborious experience for the candidate AND employee!

“ the primary reason for this underlying challenge comes down to the quality and efficiency and / or ‘inefficiency’ of their recruitment and hiring process”

10. Hiring decisions too often being made on a ‘gut feel’ as opposed to a qualified, informed and non-biased decision. This gut feel could well be “seems like a good lad or good girl, let’s give them a try”. Unfortunately good lads or good girls alone don’t necessarily mean they are a great candidate capable and suitable for fulfilling the purpose and duties of the role.

process, then start by considering where the possible faults and weaknesses might lie in your current process. Add them to the agenda for your next management meeting and get the ball rolling towards a better outcome next time you are looking to hire top talent! Until next time, happy recruiting!☺

“start by considering where the possible faults and weaknesses might lie in your current process”

I could go on as I am sure you could too, but do any of these symptoms sound familiar in your organisation? At this point I am sure there will be quite a few HR Directors thrusting this article into the faces of their hiring managers and saying “This is us!!”

Well the bad news is that there are a whole host of reasons that will positively or negatively impact the quality and efficiency of your recruitment process. The good news is that over the course of the next few months we shall be addressing the points above and investigating the steps that companies must take in order to improve their hiring process if they want to compete in today’s market and be the ‘employer of choice’ to attract the best candidates. We shall be looking at what your step by step strategy should be in order to achieve this, starting with next month’s edition, ‘How to Draft an Informative Job Description and Opportunity’, for the benefit of the hiring manager, HR, the recruiter, and most importantly the candidate!!

In the meantime, if my comments have provoked some passionate views of your own and you wish to improve the quality of your recruitment and hiring

Brad Shackleton, a descendant of the great South Pole Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, is a leading international speaker and motivational coach in Corporate Leadership, Talent Acquisition, Business Development and Strategic Sales Coaching. For more information regarding talks and bespoke coaching programmes for improving the performance of your business, please contact brad. shackleton@recruitingexcellence.com (07966 447 658)

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Recruitment Technology Back to the Future - The State of Recruitment in 2014 and Beyond • Cultural changes - both in country and cross border • Social Media • Candidates as customers (and vice versa) Everybody talks about similar key elements: there are not enough skilled workers, there are too many unskilled workers, they are all in the wrong place, we have to deal with 5+ generations in the workplace, our employment brand is now what ‘they’ say about us and we are still worried about the economy.

Alan Whitford

E

very year, pundits are asked to forecast what the future will be.

The economy, politics, technology, medicine, sports, entertainment and yes, even HR and Recruitment. Of course, none of us really have a crystal ball, so at best we make an educated guess based on our experience tempered with our own hopes or aspirations.

In a sense, that is why I refer to this topic as Back to the Future. The underlying basics of what makes great recruitment have not really changed, only the communication channels and our technology ‘toys’ have changed. While we are looking at this topic from the hiring companies’ perspective, candidates should use the article to gain a better understanding of their prospective employers’ attitudes and methodologies.

From the beginning of time (at least from a recruitment perspective), employers have all faced the same seven main challenges to staff their organisations.

• Identify their target audience • Select the channel/media that reaches that audience • Develop the messaging that suits the channel and the audience • Deliver the message • Ensure that the procedures and systems to manage and measure the response are in place • Communicate throughout the process with the candidates and your hiring managers • Make the hire There are a number of recurrent themes in conferences, blogs, media articles and inhouse discussions that we have focussed on for a number of years.

• Improved or emerging technology • Candidate communications • The War for Talent • Workplace talent shortages • HR/Recruitment has no budget

“our technology ‘toys’ have changed”

This boils down to the key factors a hiring company will have to deal with in 2014 and beyond.

• Your ability to attract and retain quality workers • How to handle the diverse cultures in your workforce • Impact of Social Media on both candidate sourcing and employee communications • Speed of change – technology changes quicker than people do • Managing this change • What technology can be used to support the change • Business vision, talent planning and creativity to identify and manage skills gaps • HR & recruitment executives need to step up with the necessary business and technology skills Of course, the candidate has a much simpler view of the issues and desires: “I want a job that pays more money, gives me satisfaction, where I can contribute to society and that I can have career progression-FAST.” What are these elements of recruitment that are positioned as the ‘future’ of recruitment?

Mobile, video, social media, Big Data, employee referrals, smartphones, tablets, smart watches and more are all positioned as the key to getting it right. Yes, these are all part of the toolkit of today’s recruitment professional. Yet I believe that a company that focusses on the basics of good recruitment and the technology and data that it already has will actually be positioned to go Back to the Future.

Utilising Recruitment Data

Most employers have invested time and money in their Applicant Tracking System/ Candidate Management System. If the

system and database is fully configured, with recruiters using all of the features and functions every day, then the recruiter should be managing their recruitment workflows and the candidate interactions in a manner that meets those candidate objectives noted above. However, a company which is using its ATS as not much more than an electronic filing cabinet or diary management system, has significant untapped potential to mine the candidate data to create a more informed candidate experience and deliver informed hiring manager success in the future.

The Future of Recruitment Technology is Now

Where does mobile fit in? Every day we read another statistic about the penetration of mobile and smartphones/tablets as the device of choice for accessing the Internet.

Over 1/3 of UK internet visits are now conducted from a mobile device, while Google’s own research in the UK found that 88% of jobseekers conducted a job search by mobile in 2013. Comscore estimates that the UK has 2.8 million job-seekers a month accessing job listings from mobile devices, Mobile has huge potential for candidate attraction and engagement. Yet most employers’ career sites (and the subsequent candidate interactions) are still stuck in PC/Laptop mode. 2014 will certainly be the Year of Mobile, provided companies get their Career Site right.

The second technology that will continue to deliver significant upside is video.

The employer can utilise tools such as Skype, GoToMeeting, Google+ or WebEx for one to one interviewing or turn to the modern offerings from companies like Sonru, HireView and LaunchpadRecruits for pre-screening of candidates. Savings on time, effort, travel and more can be quickly realised, as can the quality of candidates that are brought in to a full interview process.

What About Social Media?

We will cover the impact of social media in more depth in future issues. In the most simple view, social networking is simply an evolution of what recruiters have been doing for decades in person and over the phone (building and maintaining relationships) and taking it online. The next generation of talent sourcing professionals will search for the best fit to your organisation across a broad range of sources, rather than merely looking to see if a candidate has the right keyword in her CV in a database The sourcer will supplement Boolean results from CV databases by using the social graph to find the most influential people in a sector or job classification. Rather than getting a list of email addresses and some CVs,

“2014 will certainly be the Year of Mobile, provided companies get their Career Site right.”

a recruiter will have a candidate synopsis at their fingertips where they can learn everything possible before contacting them, drastically increasing the conversion rates of the initial conversations

What Should Recruiters Focus on in 2014?

The future proofing for recruiters sits squarely on delivering outstanding service to their customer - and by customer I mean everyone in the recruitment supply chain that the recruiter is dealing with: the HR Business Partner and line of business Hiring Manager, the rest of the recruitment/HR team and, of course, the candidate.

Alan Whitford, Managing Partner, Abtech Partnership www.abtechpartnership.com Alan is also chairman and participant in European conference programmes, with over 300 appearances. He has been published in a number of on-line and offline media covering technical and strategic HR and Recruitment issues, including the XPertHR Guide to Candidate Attraction published at the end of 2013.

11

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TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

12

Focus on.. Networking Hashtag Superconnector – are you one?

W

hen you can’t understand something and you’re truly mesmerized by it you keep studying, networking, reading, conferencing, meeting people in attempt to put shape on that invisible frame.

For me that process of continuous networking, meeting people, brand building and using social networks is a world without end.

The first time I heard of Superconnectors was in 2010 when I came across Richard Koch’s book, Superconnect which discusses the strength of weak links. Ever since reading Mark Granovetter’s PhD from 1973 on the strength of weak ties, I have been fascinated by networks, people, contacts, matchmaking, community building and random connections. This obsession introduced me to David Reed’s Law in 1999 and this led me to consider Robin Dunbar’s Number which is a suggested limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, but it is a number I remain intrigued by and yet still do not really understand.

Since 1994 aged 30, I estimate I have spent 20,000 hours online using every conceivable social system and analysis tool. I rank number one in the world on LinkedIn for testimonials and endorsements and number 73 for the total number of connections.

I have spent thousands of hours on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ in an attempt to understand their point of view, approach and style around building these social systems.

In 2009 I uncovered the concept of Open Random Supportive (ORS) thinking on the web now commonly called Network Thinking and it was this breakthrough that allowed me to embrace the concept of the Superconnector because in plural form ORS appeared in the word SuperconnectORS. When you begin the process of typing “superconnectors” into Google you begin by seeing 5,500 results suggesting this is a relatively new topic that is emerging in society. However when you dig a little deeper you start to find superconnectors going back to 2006 (from clickz.com: “Fifty-six percent of teens age 13-18 are SuperConnectors according to the GenWorld study. This group has an active lifestyle and uses multiple means of connectivity at any

given time. Connectivity tools at this generation’s disposal include such leanforward mechanisms as cell phones, text messaging, the Internet, email, instant messaging and search engines.

Even when they’re taking part of leanback media, the group finds new levels of engagement.”

The power of the hashtag allows you to organize a movement without having to get people to join anything, login to something new or download yet another app Digging even deeper you find superconnector Keith Ferrazzi in 2005 and one of the original superconnectors Paul Revere regarded by many in North America as a founding father. So like all things in life there’s very little new that hasn’t been thought of and done before but when we jump to the modern day and consider now that on twitter you can identify superconnectors simply by those who use a hashtag to label their communications.

The power of the hashtag allows you to organize a movement without having to get people to join anything, login to something new or download yet another app. To many people having the choice of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is already too much choice so the #superconnectors hashtag makes connecting that much easier. With this in mind and being a believer in the emerging #superconnectors movement I introduced the hashtag inside one of my clients to identify their own superconnectors internally and to connect them together worldwide primarily using twitter.

Superconnectors see links between things that others cannot see and thus new threads, angles, discussions and random connections emerge all the time.

The experiment continues today and is beginning to show results. First of all superconnectors tend to be exactly that: natural superconnectors and matchmakers (matchmakORS). They tend to seek out new connections all the time and look for opportunities to match people up to other people, new projects, new ideas, new events and new opportunities. By their very nature superconnectors see links between things that others cannot see and thus new threads, angles, discussions and random connections emerge all the

time. Furthermore around the globe more and more people are starting to discuss superconnectors as a collective, as a community, as a meme, as a movement. We are right of the beginning of something new online and offline.

So there you have it, a new emerging movement online or something reshaping from the past hundred thousand years of mankind’s own survival (survivORS) …who knows, but either way it’s great fun to be part of it and seeing where it takes us all.

If you think you are one of the superconnectors simply include #superconnectors hashtag in your communication and see who shows up …it might be someone you’ve been waiting to meet for years.

Thomas Power is Chief Evangelist at Scredible @thomaspower on twitter

Behind every successful business is a Born Digital Youth!

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Whether it’s steering young people through an innovative Social Digital Apprenticeship or providing routeways to other experience and qualifications, DYA’s solutions are right for today and ready for tomorrow.

DYA students benefit from access to a community platform and the DYA Zone, a full multi-media learning platform. Add that to the guidance and skills provided by a network of experienced delivery partners and it’s easy to see why it’s a win-win for both young people AND employers.

Professionalism goes hand in hand with commercialism.

An example is the new Youth Web Builders project that provides young people with the opportunity to gain a valuable qualification whilst building a website for a small business or charity.

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13

WHY USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RECRUITMENT MAKES SIMPLE SENSE

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Set up alerts and search for the latest jobs from over 3,000 companies and agencies on www.vacancyinformer.com

Free advertising for Recruiters

B

efore the emergence of social media, how did a company go about recruiting? A vacancy placed in a local paper or national press were a given.

Perhaps asking their own employees if they knew of any suitable candidates. A vacancy could be posted on notice boards at Job Centres, and even in local supermarkets or stores. Now, of course, it’s all changed.

Or has it? Is one of the benefits of social media not that you can carry out the same basic recruitment process on a much greater scale? Naturally, it can also go much further than that and increase the benefits of effective use.

How social media can offer a more accurate perspective Around 75% of those applying for any job really shouldn’t. They are, quite obviously, not qualified for the role. If you are a recruiter, your own estimate may be even higher. One task effective use of social media can achieve for you is to encourage candidates rather than simply applicants.

The former are people who, after exposure to your sites and messages through social media, reach a decision that yours is an organisation they would consider working for. Once they are so identified, it’s easier to encourage them to then become applicants only for the specific career moves that would be right for them.

The most important people on social media How many employees do you have? What percentage are profiled on LinkedIn? How many have a social media presence? Do you know the number of contacts they then have through such networking activities? Here are the advocates for your company, and are you helping them to know what to say? Not by demanding or coercing, but by creating an environment where they want to paint positive pictures about the place where they

work. Just there is half of your reputation; which is then completed by your own web profile and customer experiences.

When you are hiring, these are the likely reference points for the people who are willing to consider working for you. It takes little time now to know what “the word on the street” is about you.

Tips for making the most of social media for recruitment You can use Google+, LinkedIn, and the like to create a talent pipeline for your business, almost a social community of those waiting to be called. It’s also becoming increasingly important to appreciate that you operate in a world of “mobile recruitment”. Your messages and images need to hit the mark to be effectively viewed on everything from an iPad to a tablet, a Blackberry or the like.

Of course, you need to use all the accepted SEO activities and other well-accepted processes, and find the right partner to help you. Added to this, though, you should now be actively looking to know what potential jobseekers are saying about you through social media. Just as you are surely checking customers comments, consider this – a decade ago, a disgruntled candidate could tell their mates in the pub what they thought of you. Now they can broadcast it to their world in a moment.

In the old days, a candidate would be taking a step into the dark as they walked into a job interview. Now, and ever more in the future, you can already have them positively engaged with your organisation, its values and ethos, even its atmosphere, by your being “committedly social”.

Gary Smith, Vacancy Informer, Vacancy Informer Limited www.vacancyinformer.com

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TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

14

Onboarding First Impressions

O

nce someone has identified you, as the company they would like to work with, they are looking for constant reassurance that they are right!

First impressions are created at the initial point of contact, but they are reinforced every time they experience an interaction with your team. Whether communicating by email, twitter, blog, website, letter, telephone or face to face, your company is sending a message to that individual about who you are and how you value them. If you hold someone in high regard and care how they feel and what they think about you – and importantly what they will say about you, then each and every interaction you have with them will be planned and delivered thoughtfully.

When people are going through the recruitment process, they are weighing up all the evidence ‘for and against’

coming on board with you – and the best talent will be doing this with several companies at the same time. They’ll be benchmarking all the companies they are considering against their ideal and comparing you with your competitors.

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your induction process may be, if you lose people during this early part of the process, you’ll never get them there to experience it anyway!

Little things can become big gestures during the first impressions stage.

Things like: Picking up the phone to talk to someone, as well as sending them an email.

Offering people as much information as you can about the role, your team, the company, your vision and the opportunity as readily as possible – and keeping it real!

Look after the people who aren’t successful, who aren’t quite right for your team – they will be for someone else and they are out there right now, telling their network how you treated them and you can directly influence what they say by your actions.

That old saying ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’ partly applies here, but remember, different generations have different expectations, so don’t make assumptions. Find out what people expect and want and provide it – don’t second guess, it’s just too important to gamble with your companies reputation and brand.

It doesn’t take much to create a really great impression if you work at the detail, plan in advance, set high service standards and most of all hire and engage great people – they are by far your best (and if you are not careful your worst) advocates.

Fiona Lander, Managing Director, Lander Consultancy www.landerassociates.co.uk

ThePulse for graduates

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university starting out 2014 grads new talent new job apprenticeship

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TeamPlayer 360 ThePULSE • Issue 1

16

How to be a cool design intern… and crack that interview!

A word of advice or should that be warning…?

Employers are seeking high and low for talent and they will pay for it… £20/25k maybe even £30/35k Imagine the scenario…. The creative director will interview you thoroughly of course, he will be fascinated by your quirky ways, the way you keep messing with your hair, the way you click your tongue and point your fingers like a gun and say; “you got it!” when asked if you would like to show some of your work now. The relaxed way you lay your arm across the back of the chair like you own the place. Maybe keep looking at your iPhone as if you are expecting another call from a prospective employer at any moment and don’t talk too much, just grunt occasionally… and whatever you do don’t engage in eye contact. Maybe swear a little to give you street cred, don’t bother shaving, hell, don’t even wash after all you’re an artiste, a designer, the last bastion of cool...

OK ENOUGH! are you serious!!!!!???? Do you really think we

buy this charade? I may not be Saatchi’s or BBH but if you lay all that crap on me at an interview you will be out on your ear double quick and that’s if I’m in a good mood, if not I will tear apart your portfolio, I will pour scorn like Niagara falls on your head until you feel so miniscule you want to crawl into the smallest crevice and never come out. I will humiliate you in front of the rest of my creative team before waving you good bye.

I’ve had a number of interns who swagger in as if they have just won their 5th D&AD award and then show me a portfolio that looks like a craft entry at a church fair.

So Ok here’s the ‘insight’ the ‘inside track’, the ‘knowledge’ you crave to land that internship... mind blowing but true, we are actually looking for someone whose personable and genuine, someone who reminds you how lucky we are to do a job we are passionate about. Someone who has taken the trouble to research a little about the business, who is more interested in realising a dream and doing great work than a few hundred extra quid in their starting salary.

Don’t go in with unrealistic expectations of salary, unless you are a design god or a lawyer you will not get a £30k starting salary whatever your lecturer said.

When you present yourself at an interview, we imagine how our clients will view you when they meet you, do you look professional? Trustworthy? Serious about your work? (you can still look stylish and express your own taste).

You have to remember that we are ‘tight’ and stressed, we spend all day haggling with suppliers to wring out the last dregs of profit from every project! We have bills to pay, a £100/200k office rent to pay and an already spiralling wage bill. To be honest particularly initially, you are somewhat of an encumbrance. When we stop what we are doing to mentor you, to harness your undoubted potential it only adds to the pressure and the realisation that you are a long way from being at the point where you can make money for the business.

You will not be financially viable for the business for often up to a year or even two before you start to payback. So giving attitude at the interview doesn’t make you a hot prospect… it makes you a pain in the ass.

So remember if you are talented, hungry, passionate, polite and prepared, then you are half way there. Strange as it may seem after this rant, I love interns, they fuel my enthusiasm they keep me fresh and motivated I love their naiveté, their appetite and believe it or not I am happy to invest in their talent and potential. I will even tolerate some attitude if the person’s heart is in the right place and they have genuine ambition to achieve but please note this is business not College or Uni, we are not your mates in the students union, it’s about money and no one wants to invest in someone whose flaky about time keeping, ill prepared and poorly presented. So when you go for that interview don’t be afraid to show you care about the position and save the swagger at least until you’ve got the job, remember no one likes a smart arse. *Carl Brady, Director of Big Stick is presently looking for a web design intern.... email Carl@bigstick.co.uk with your CV.

How do you get that first job?

The milk round – the recruitment drive carried out by large companies at universities and colleges – is the most likely means of finding that first job.

Recruiters are, for graduates and early entries, dare I say, a poor second best. Large companies will usually contact recruiters only if they cannot find candidates by direct sourcing. Nevertheless, that does not mean they do not use recruiters and we make many successful graduate placements each year.

We do tell fresh graduates without prior work experience not to hold their breath waiting for us to

CV TIPS

come up with their dream job. But we also tell them that if they do not buy a ticket, they cannot win the lottery – registering with recruiters makes it easier to find suitable vacancies.

So what else can you do? Start early and make friends with people you already know from the years above you in your University and who have already graduated and found roles in the area in which you want to work as they will be able to recommend you. Most large companies have “find a friend” referral schemes where they reward staff who recommend a “friend” who is subsequently employed by them.

f o e m a g A n o i t a c i l p ap robably one Your CV is p portant im of the most cuments o d is advertising write. It is th r you will eve t secures a document th if not the job , w the intervie t in mind, a itself. With th asic rules. b e follow som

• Keep it simple. For example, list dates in a margin on the left hand side of the page so it is easy to see.

• Chronology. Make it easy for the recruiter or line manager scanning your CV to find what they are looking for.

• Make sure your CV is topical and in tone with current skill sets as required or marketed by the industry.

• Never lie on your CV. It may come back and haunt you at a later stage in your career and, in extreme cases, can result in dismissal.

• You will receive all sorts of advice from all sorts of people on layout and design.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder – it is your CV, so you must be happy with it.

If there was a perfect CV, someone would by now be a millionaire advising people on it.

Dr Geraldine Kaye, Managing Director, www.gaaps.co.uk

All you have to do is ask Born with an inquisitive and acquisitive mind, I have never been slow in asking questions and I certainly asked plenty during my days as an actuarial trainee. If I have one message for today’s graduate entrants to any role, it would be ‘never be afraid to ask questions’. It is a superb way of building up knowledge and shows that you are engaged and interested. It is important to remember that different employers are looking for different things; one size does not fit all.

Before you apply, research different companies, look at their websites and speak to their representatives at careers fairs. Get a feel for the companies so you can apply to the employer that is right for you.

Dr Geraldine Kaye, Managing Director, www.gaaps.co.uk

17 TeamPlayer 360 ThePULSE • Issue

Not a lot of people know about ….Alliance Management

Get ahead of the game Figure out what you enjoy doing most and do that At 22 you’ve only just begun to build up the life experiences to know what works, what doesn’t and why, to realise that the solution you came up with to fix problem A may not fix problem B. Solutions do not always work in a cookie cutter way. However being able to find solutions is one of the most valuable assets any candidate can bring to the employment table. So my top tip to any graduate or job seeker starting out in their career: “Accumulate Work Experiences”. As we approach the end of the academic year, we will see many graduates emerging into the job market, waving their qualifications and eager to make their mark. Whilst interviewers will ask you where you want to be in five years’ time, you need to be asking them where they are aiming to be in 10, 20 or even 30 years’ time. The crux (for me) of strategic planning is to start with the end in mind and then work backwards. Think about what you want to achieve in your career, where you want to be, and consider the steps to get there. Most of all, figure out what you enjoy doing and make sure that’s what you can be doing every day.

Words of advice from Stephen Bailey of Atlas GOSS Limited, one of London’s top strategic planners strategic planners and Director of Atlas GOSS Limited www.atlas-goss.com

So just when I thought it couldn’t get any more interesting and challenging, the Industry began to work with each other in increasingly collaborative ways which back then was called co-option, or partnership.

Stephen Bailey is Director of Atlas GOSS Limited www.atlas-goss.com specialising in Alliances Strategy & Development and Executive Search around Alliances roles.

ENTRIES A R T G E M I N I P R I Z E

2 0 1 4

Following an amazing success of the inaugural ArtGeminiPrize 2013 which attracted 744 entries from 33 countries, we are now launching the second edition, the ArtGeminiPrize 2014.

Exhibitons in Prizes will be awarded to

LONDON and SINGAPORE

2014

In the business world today, it’s very rare to find a company who can do everything themselves and even rarer to find a company who has the ability to provide a total solution all on their own. So, whilst sales & marketing will always be important at the front end and having the right delivery capability is crucial to success at the back end, for me, all the value lies in the middle ground where Alliances professionals find themselves crafting relationships that bring new value to the proposition and its delivery with companies that sometimes will be cooperative and other times competitive.

CALL for 7 September

The key thing about my time in the Outsourcing and Support Services Industries has been that no two business situations are the same and working with complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty is thoroughly enjoyable (for me)!

Over the last 20 years, I’ve led substantial business development in programmes involving the likes of SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, HP, Cisco and a plethora of specialist technology companies. Each time, my role has been to figure out what our value proposition is, what the benefit of our proposition is to the customer and why our proposition is better for the customer than those of our competition. When there is more than one company involved in providing the solution, that’s where it gets really interesting and all the fun and enjoyment come from!

OPEN TO

ALL ARTISTS

w: artgeminiprize.com e: art@artgeminiprize.com

design by Sarah Müller ©

the winners in four categories:

PAINTING & SCULPTURE

PHOTOGRAPHY PUBLIC CHOICE

YOUNG ARTIST t: +44 (0) 20 8505 9684 m: +44 (0) 79 6938 3494

£5500 PRIZE FUND

When I left school, working in “outsourcing” wasn’t on the careers list, nor was running your own business. As part of my degree I went to work on placement with Otis (the lift people) and they offered me a job to start as soon as I graduated.

After four years there and many corny comments later about how work was “up and down”, I decided that I wanted to work in a role that helped businesses develop strategically. Information Technology was evolving rapidly and its endless possibilities and potential excited me. I was fortunate to be recruited into EDS (the largest company in the world that you’d never heard of) at a time when the value in a business proposition mattered most and my skill was to be able to figure out what the value technology could bring to a business and explain it in business terms rather than technospeak.

Today we describe those relationships as strategic alliances.

DEADLINE:

Every month we take a look at a different career path, some new, some old and some hardly anyone has heard of… helping to inspire you.

twitter: @artgeminiprize facebook: /artgeminiprize

1

TeamPlayer 360 ThePULSE • Issue 1

18

Treading the Boards – life after school Knowing what you want to do in life at any age can be a complex issue but knowing what you want to do at 16 can be especially daunting. With little life experience, limited knowledge about your options, and sometimes coupled with a not so satisfactory experience of education, it may feel you’ve come to the end of the road before you’ve even started. [photo of Aisling Dunne]

This situation pretty much describes how Aisling Dunne felt when leaving school after her GCSEs. “I left school at 16 without really knowing what I wanted to do, I hadn’t particularly enjoyed school and didn’t see myself studying A’ levels and going on to university. I worked doing different jobs which saw me in a 9-5 role as an Office Junior and for a while working in a coffee shop.”

For many there’s nothing wrong with starting work at 16, it can be nice suddenly to have your own money and gain a sense of independence. Many of today’s successful entrepreneurs started that way. Sir Alan Sugar left school at 16 and worked briefly for the civil service as a statistician at the Ministry of Education before starting to sell car aerials and electrical goods out of a van he had bought with his £50 savings. This, as we know, led to him becoming one of the most successful, and possibly one of the best known entrepreneurs of the 21st Century.

However, it’s not necessarily the right route for everyone, and with recent changes in legislation it’s now also not an entirely viable option either. In 2013 the ‘raising of the participation age’ came into effect. This means that every young person is now required to remain in some form of education or training until their 17th birthday and that will rise to their 18th birthday in 2015.

If working at 16 isn’t the right option or even now a legitimate one what choices are there? This was something that Aisling asked herself not long after leaving school and having experienced the world of work. Despite her somewhat salutary experience of education she decided she would try it again but this time for something she was passionate about – drama.

Aisling went along to her local college, LeSoCo, where she was a bit surprised to be put through a rather tough audition, describing it as “intense”, she went on to say: “It was very selective and I was

impressed with how rigorous it was”. Fortunately she got a place and that place has seen her excel.

Now aged 22 she is the second year of her degree course at Queen Mary University, which is currently rated as having the best Drama department in the country according to The 2014 Complete University Guide.

Aged 16 this was not where she had in any way imagined she would find herself. So how did it happen? Her level three BTEC qualification gained at LeSoCo was the entry card. However, it wasn’t just the qualification that meant she succeeded. It was the performance experience she gained studying in an adult environment, with tutors who themselves had tread the boards.

It was a place that suited her and was a million miles away from her experience at school.

With support and encouragement from her tutors she applied and was accepted at several universities. She says: “I didn’t think you could go to university

with a BTEC qualification but you can. I hope this inspires other students who have not gone down the traditional route to think about higher education.” Aisling is now carrying on with her studies and pursuing her dream of a becoming a drama therapist.

If you’re interested in studying for a career in drama or know someone who is, pop along to one of LeSoCo’s open days in June 2014.

Simone Davies, www.lesoco.ac.uk

42%

42% of 18 to 30 year olds believe they took the wrong educational path.

Source: Edge Foundation: November 2007

What is a BTEC? BTECs are work related qualifications suitable for a wide range of students, built to accommodate the needs of employers and allow progression to university.

They provide a more practical, real-world approach to learning alongside a key theoretical background.

BTECs are recognised by schools, colleges, universities, employers and professional bodies across the United Kingdom and in over 100 countries worldwide.

BTECs have been around for more than 30 years, their reputation is second to none and they continue to grow and develop.

19 TeamPlayer 360 ThePULSE • Issue

1

Are apprenticeships more valuable than a degree?

Today’s ‘the Day’ here at MiddletonMurray as we were recently announced as the Gold Award Winners at the Apprenticeships4England Training Provider Awards in the category ‘Best Training Provider, Sub Contractor’ So while times have definitely changed since my school days (last one, I promise..) and while we are certainly living in competitive times; if your sole reason for going to University is your personal equivalent of because ‘your cousin Robert did’, but you’re really not sure it’s for you, then you should seriously consider doing an Apprenticeship and ‘earn while you learn’.

You’ll then have a great head start to your working life.....and trust me; one day well into in the future you’ll refer fondly on this period as being ‘your day’.

Whilst I certainly don’t consider myself ‘old’, I do find myself lapsing into middleaged ‘in my day’ type utterances more and more often of late and this is certainly the case when discussing youth employment and, in particular, the merits of doing an Apprenticeship as opposed to going to University.

In my day (sorry, but I did say....) there certainly wasn’t pressure on my generation to go to University – the closest I ever came to academic pressure was my family really wanted me to go to the local grammar school because, as I kept being told throughout my last years at primary school, ‘your cousin Robert is doing so well there’. Rightly or wrongly I do remember feeling just a little pressure on me not to let my family down when I went for my interview at Shooters Hill Grammar School but, fortunately, I passed and was successful in winning a place ‘at my cousin Robert’s school’!

I had a great education at Shooters Hill but again, there was no pressure on me to carry on my studying at university as ‘good’ jobs were not exactly hard to come by if you had done well in your ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels. That was certainly the case with me as I came straight out of school and into Midland Bank (which later became HSBC). However, just a few years after I left school the emphasis changed and it then became almost essential to go to University if you wanted to have even a chance of going into a career such as Banking.

Now, after enjoying a 15 year career in the Bank and then a 25 year career in commercial management in professional football at organisations including The Football League and Charlton Athletic FC, I’m now enjoying my role in recruitment

and training as Head of Marketing and PR at award winning recruitment and training specialists MiddletonMurray and it is really interesting to me to see that, after a such long period when it became ‘the norm’ to go to University, the mood is changing again.

Of course, University can be a fantastic experience but having a degree is no longer a guarantee of securing a highly-paid job.

Apparently there are 83 graduates applying for every graduate job so competition is fierce, and with increasing tuition fees and the average student debt upon leaving university currently at £25,000, I don’t blame young people for reconsidering their plans to study for a degree.

So what’s the alternative? Here at MiddletonMurray we passionately believe the alternative is an Apprenticeship.

Unlike in my day (sorry, force of habit..), apprenticeships have moved on from just being associated with trades such as plumbing, building and electrics and, in my old industry, it certainly no longer means young footballers becoming effectively the unofficial cleaners at the football club.

According to recent research released in early 2013, the increasing popularity of Apprenticeships among young people runs in tandem with the fact that employers find apprentices 15% more employable than young people with other qualifications.

In the study, employers ranked higher apprentices as the most employable of all young people – above those with degrees.

So what is an Apprenticeship? An Apprenticeship, which is a minimum of 12 months in duration, will kick start your career by enabling you to gain paid work experience and confidence whilst working towards a recognised qualification. Many

young people benefit from a Traineeship before progressing to the Apprenticeship Programme and this is certainly the case

Steve Sutherland, Head of Marketing and PR, MiddletonMurray www.middletonmurray.com

TAKE THE NEXT STEP STUDY WITH US jobs / apprenticeships / university lesoco.ac.uk 0800 834 545

Summer Open Day Saturday 14 June 10am-2pm Lewisham Site

Art & Fashion Business Beauty Care & Early Years Construction Dance & Drama ESOL Floristry

Hospitality & Catering IT Music Media Science Sport Teaching Travel & Tourism

TeamPlayer 360 ThePULSE • Issue 1

20

Up, Up, Up and Away Working at 40,000 feet up in the sky there is a lot more to being one of the world’s cabin crew than you might think. With competition as fierce as ever to get a step on the plane’s ladder joining this high flying workforce might feel like a distant dream.

It’s a competitive field; simply having a passion for travel won’t be enough to secure you a job if you aspire to a career in the skies. So what can you do to secure a future with a top airline?

I spoke to two women with the insight and expert knowledge on how you can get that dream job.

Maxine Room CBE, is the principal and CEO of a large urban college that runs a number of cabin crew courses in London. Natalie Smith is the recruitment manager at easyJet, and receives around 15,000 applications a year across their 23 bases covering the UK and Europe.

Maxine explained that the college has seen a large increase in the numbers of students applying to its cabin crew courses over the last two years: “It’s a competitive

environment and it seems to be getting tougher. Those looking to gain a job or even an interview for cabin crew are doing all they can to give themselves the best chance of success.

“Whilst a cabin crew qualification isn’t mandatory it does demonstrate a high level of commitment and it means you’re one step ahead of the competition”.

We employ teaching staff who have worked in the industry.

They know how exciting an airline career can be but they also understand how equally tough it is. They have the knowledge and experience to ensure students come out with the skills they need to secure a job with one of the world’s airlines. They have been there, lived it, seen it, done it and because of that LeSoCo has a reputation in the industry for sending students into the workplace who are practically flight ready.”

Natalie Smith, at easyJet agrees with Maxine that study can also be advantageous: “We find that candidates who have studied on a cabin crew course are often very confident on our assessment days. When they move through to training they always achieve high pass marks due to their preknowledge of flying.

“We ask all applicants why they want to be cabin crew and by attending a course beforehand it shows a level of commitment and desire to succeed. This strengthens an application and their motivation for starting a career in the air.”

She went on to describe the type of person they want to employ: “When recruiting cabin crew we are looking for candidate’s characters to shine through – we want people who are customer focused, teamwork-orientated and passionate about success.”

Last year easyJet recruited approximately 1000 new recruits out of those 15,000 applicants.

So even having a recognised

SCOTTISH START-UP SUMMIT IN SAN FRANCISCO 2014 Young Scottish entrepreneurs are to be given the chance to win an expenses paid business trip to California to attend the Scottish Start-up Summit in San Francisco in July.

The project is the brainchild of 19-year-old Scottish businessman Bruce Walker.

His not-for-profit organisation,

We Are The Future, last year organised Britain’s biggestever national event for young entrepreneurs – the Scottish Start-up Summit 2013.

like this strengthen our shared vision of becoming a worldleading entrepreneurial and innovative nation as set out in Scotland CAN DO.”

John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth: said “There is a growing appetite for entrepreneurship amongst young people in Scotland. Programmes

Applicants will first be asked to submit a 30-second video, explaining how their business would benefit from the trip.

Shortlisted entrants will then be interviewed. The young

qualification might not be enough.

Natalie explained there is more that you can do: ”Try and gain at least six months’ customer service experience. We look for crew who are passionate about delivering a great customer service to each and every passenger who flies with us regardless of whether it is at 6am or 12 noon! So having previous customer service experience and being able to demonstrate this, definitely strengthens an application.”

And why wouldn’t she?

This is a job where the sky outside your window is always blue, where every day you get to work with a fun and friendly team who share your enthusiasm and passion for delivering the best customer service there is. As Natalie says: “easyJet cabin crew get to beat the nine-to-five grind, travel the world, and be part of one of the biggest business success stories in recent times.”

This describes exactly the situation that Kimberley Cooper, 21 from south east London found herself in: “I’d applied several times to work for easyJet, but despite having passed my level 2 cabin crew course I was told I wasn’t succeeding because I didn’t have enough customer service experience.” To get round this she did exactly what easyJet suggested: “I got a job in a restaurant and it worked. I re-applied and I’ve now been at easyJet for eight months – and I’m loving it!”

If you’ve always wanted a job flying across the skies then you can find out more about cabin crew courses at lesoco.ac.uk or hotcourses.com or get in touch directly with easyJet careers. easyjet.com

entrepreneurs will have their flight and accommodation provided by We Are The Future and will take part in a week long programme of events and meet-ups, including meetings with business leaders and venture capitalists as well as with start-up businesses in San Francisco.

Business Banking said: “RBS is delighted to be able to support the Scottish Start-Up Summit in San Francisco. Whilst Scotland is a small country, our success as a trading nation and in particular our ability to export is vital to the prosperity of the nation.”

Among the supporters of the Scottish Start-up Summit in San Francisco are, Scottish Development International and The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Gordon Merrylees - RBS Regional Managing Director

Simone Davies, Director of Marketing and Communications, www.lesoco.ac.uk

For more information contact: Bruce Walker, bruce.walker@wearethefuture.org.uk Tel. +44 (0) 7855 449 327 or Russell Dalgleish, russell@exolta.com Tel. +44 (0) 792 000 8187

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From Vogue to Businesswoman - a Mantra for Everyone We talk to Theo Omambala “I have always sought to be the best at what I do” I was born and raised in London, the oldest of three children. My parents are Nigerian.

Education, Cultural roots and a strong work ethic were the values instilled in me as a child. This is the foundation that I have used to build not only my career, but perhaps more importantly, my identity.

I have always believed that if one is in tune with oneself, your unique beautiful path is revealed. One can say I fell into modelling by accident, as a friend asked me to model in her graduate show collection in London… and I thought why not. In hindsight this life changing decision was the first step towards what I believe was my destiny.

I have been blessed with parents who are essentially open-minded. My late father although a chartered accountant followed his passion for Music and in the early seventies brought to London the late great Osadebe the famous high-life musician in Nigeria and his band for live gigs and studio recording. My mother hails from a wonderful family line of eccentrics and non-conformists. I graduated with a BA Hons French/EngIish, and I was given the freedom to live my life.

I have always sought to be the best at what I do, regardless of the many challenges I have

had to overcome. It is my grounding values of spirituality, family and culture that have helped me overcome the many obstacles in over 20 years working in the International Fashion Arena.

The two big breaks in my career were firstly, Vogue featured five new black faces to look out for in the International Fashion Industry.

I was one of them. Prior to that I had already “paid my dues” that is to say learnt my craft.

I was professional, had developed a unique style and excelled at what I did.

The second big break was in the latter part of my career my first ever lucrative TV Advert. I was actually 3 months pregnant so my body shape was not Modelesque. The client wanted a blonde blue eyed girl, but gave me the chance to cast. The panel of five immediately after seeing me changed their description brief for me and booked me: a black woman with shaved head for the job. Why? It must have been because of my personality, charm, uniqueness and experience.

So, I think anyone aspiring to get promotion, win in a successful interview or achieve success as a business owner should endeavour to acquire the mantra I created for myself as a brand and Model.

LEARN YOU R CRAFT-P ersonal Sk DEVELOP Y ills, Assets OUR BRAN , USP D - Presentati YOU ARE Y on- Comm OUR BUISIN unicationESS- Role Confidence interviewer reversal yo instead of u in effect be th e in te come the rviewee.

YOU ARE T HE PRODU C TP ersonal de STAY TRUE velopment, TO WHO Y hobbies, sp OU ARE- U KNOW THE orts, health niqueness INDUSTRYin depth co employer mpany pro file researc h of potenti BE IN IT FO al R THE LON G HAUL- co nstant upd ating of all of the above .

Theo Omambala, Model , www.facebook.com/TVLHC

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

22

Focus on..

Behavioural science Inclusion is now recognised as mainstream to business success and here’s how to make it happen

The Inclusion Imperative, a book

by Stephen Frost, a Harvard Fellow, and just published, powerfully demonstrates that inclusion is mainstream to business success and particularly in these times of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity).

Moreover, the McKinsey Insight for January states: “To ensure that corporate culture supports—not hinders—the ability of women to reach top management, companies must address mindsets and develop a more inclusive, holistic diversity agenda.” Hence building an inclusive culture is now recognised as the means

to increase the representation of women in senior management. Of course, regular readers will know that I have been saying both of these things in my monthly blogs for a long time.

STAGE 1

the leading knowledge body in the world on behavioural change and leadership and organisational development.

Ian Dodds Consulting (IDC) is differentiated from many of its competitors by having successfully

delivered Inclusion in many client organisations. We are able to achieve this success through having the in depth behavioural change knowhow needed. This has been acquired from our long experience of delivering culture change and my elected membership of the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioural Science,

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

STAGE 4

STAGE 5

UNFREEZE

MOBILISE

REALISE

EMBED

SUSTAIN

‘Unfreeze’, we conduct an Inclusion diagnostic to understand the key behavioural change issues. The diagnostic also generates quotes or stories, which can, where appropriate, be scripted into interactive theatre scenarios. This is important because the intellectual business case for inclusion needs to be reinforced by quotes and stories of experiences by clients’ employees of exclusion and unconscious bias. These make an emotional impact to create the will to act by senior management.

‘Mobilise’ we help our clients establish an Inclusion Steering Group.

The role of this body is to: • Formulate an Inclusion strategy taking account of the diagnostic findings and have this agreed with the leadership team and sponsored by them.

• Establish any task/project groups needed to work up Inclusion policies and practices, e.g. on flexible working.

• Monitor progress with the implementation of the Inclusion strategy and address any barriers to progress and identify and publicise success stories.

‘Realise’ the Inclusion strategy is rolled out across the client’ organisation and communicated. The communication takes into account the Beckhard Change Equation by:

‘Embed’, the leadership takes action to ensure each one of them is a role model exemplar in inclusive behaviour. This is because leadership behaviour is the most powerful driver of change (Prof Ed Schein). Also, business and, especially, the people processes are changed as necessary to take account of Inclusion needs and incorporate best practices.

‘Sustain’ is the stage when internal change agents are trained to sustain Inclusion practices and behaviours.

The internal change agents train middle and front line managers in interactive effectiveness to lead great teams. Finally, this is the stage when success stories are publicised to reinforce the behavioural change.

• Offering a vision of future success achieved by Inclusion being the way things are done.

• Generating dissatisfaction because the world has changed and Inclusion is needed for future success.

• The actions that will be taken, including those needed to enable everyone to be successful in an Inclusive organisation.

Our approach to building an inclusive culture involves following the 5 Stages of Change (Prof Kurt Lewin).

If you would like to know more about our approach to building high performance, inclusive cultures, or what we call leveraging The Power of Inclusion, please contact me.

Dr Ian Dodds, www.iandoddsconsulting.com IDC Academy Online: http://idcacademyonline.com

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TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

DIVERSITY IN THE CITY? Part of the battle is to ensure that diversity is seen as a priority issue within the organisation and senior management, HR and external businesses involved in recruitment are all aligned to ensure that the desired outcomes are met for diversity within the business. Organisations also need to understand what is stopping them from having a more diverse workforce: is it historical factors, individuals who are resistant to change or is it a wider malaise within the organisation? Diversity is all too often seen as a boxticking exercise and some firms have even looked towards quotas as a way of solving diversity within their business.

The threat of quotas is seen as one way to encourage businesses to deal with diversity as a priority, but quotas have had in many cases limited impact on helping women into senior positions. Take the Scandinavian countries, with female quotas in place, but still with only 3% of women in senior positions.

Are businesses doing enough to encourage diversity within their workforces? The theme is constantly under discussion when looking at the proportion of women in senior positions in the City. However, success stories are often overlooked such as

Deutsche Bank’s recent diversity initiative, which resulted in a rise from 6% to 25% of female external hires at a senior level within the organisation. But how do businesses in general encourage more gender diversity?

A recent survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) concluded that employee diversity offers a proven route to increased innovation and organisational performance.

While 55.5% of total employees within the UK banking sector are women, when it comes to women in management roles, this figure drops dramatically to 30%.

The results of the survey

demonstrated that there was a mixture of cultural and organisational barriers which often made it difficult for women to rise to senior levels within banking.

The male management culture within banking was identified as the primary barrier, while only 22% believed that people were promoted on merit alone. 48% of respondents believed that barriers to progression existed within their institution.

At Executive or Board level, 50% of women considered that there was a barrier to reaching such a level, while only 33% of men felt that the same barriers existed. 56% of women felt that lack of flexible working opportunities represented a barrier, while 41% of women felt that there were not enough female role models within their organisation.

But how do organisations look to solve the diversity question?

Some of the answers lie in the use of more output-focused performance management and merit-based promotion, rather than hours based in the office. Other measures include increasing the measurement of diversity within organisations and increasing female representation at all levels of management. The creation of sponsorship and mentoring programmes and developing coaching schemes between senior men and aspiring female leaders may also encourage more organisational diversity. Senior female role models also need to be more visible within organisations

and firms needed to move away from a presenteeism culture towards more flexible working practices for both men and women.

The executive search industry also has a major role to play in promoting diversity. The 2011 Davies Report recommended that search firms needed to work with clients to address diversity goals from long lists through to defining briefs and supporting selection.

Supporting executive and nonexecutive teams in relation to succession planning, emphasizing intrinsics over certain types of experience and supporting the successful candidate induction process are also considered important measures towards a more diverse workforce.

Paul Schoonenberg, PAS Search, www.passearch.co.uk

Professionalising the role of Alliance Management Stephen Bailey is a leading strategic planner and expert in alliance management. We talk to him about his aspiration to professionalise Alliance Management.

Over the last 20 years, Stephen has been responsible for business relationships in Outsourcing, Technology and Support Services and during that time many of those relationships have been collaborative in nature, built around a partnership philosophy.

“As long ago as the late 90’s people were talking about the need to professionalise the role of Alliance Management and over the last 15 years some progress has been made,” says Stephen.

“However, relative to other disciplines like marketing, accountancy and HR, there is still a lot to be done in order

for Alliance Management to be seen as a profession in its own right to the same extent as those other disciplines. Firstly we need to encourage alliance people to undertake learning and achieve accreditation from ASAP, the recognised industry body of certification. This should go hand in hand with best

practice in search & selection.

Thirdly, we need to enable companies when working together to adopt standardised methodologies, frameworks and processes, so that people can get on with the job in the alliance rather than trying to outline a role of alliance manager.”

Stephen Bailey is Director of Atlas GOSS Limited www.atlas-goss.com specialising in Alliances Strategy & Development and Executive Search around Alliances roles. (see also his tips in The Pulse, page 17)

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

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Leadership Training Neville Gaunt Leadership Training and Closing the knowing-doing gap In Learning and Development circles the gap between knowing and doing has been known for years. But what does it mean and what is the impact? The impact is that business performance is impaired and sub-optimal at best.

So maybe it’s time to do things differently?

Even in Leadership Development programmes at the higher end of the training scale follow knowledge-based processes, where all candidates will know about leadership techniques and skills, but few act them out successfully in their workplace.

A look at the evidence throws up some interesting facts, not just from a few unrecognized sources, but respected institutes and organisations. But let’s face it, if knowledge training other than in technical fields had really worked, would we have the unacceptable levels of underperformance, disengagement, poor leadership, dysfunctional teams, conflict and sickness? These are all stubbornly persistent in most organisations today. And it’s not just in business, it happens in the education of our children too!

Conversely, positively driven people with a ‘can do’ attitude are engaged and it is well known that engaged people perform. Not only do engaged people perform, there are host of other benefits that accrue – loyalty, commitment, respect…and many more.

So here are some engagement facts and figures: • 94% of world’s top companies now put their effort into engagement (Hay) • Top 25% had twice annual income (Kenexa) • Average operating margin close to 3 times higher than those with disengagement (Towers Watkins) • 23,000 business units averaged 18% higher productivity than disengaged (Gallup) • 3.4 times more effective financially (Harter) • Engaged workers built plane 25% quicker than disengaged (BAE Systems)

• Engaged workers average 2.69 days sickness compared with 7.16 days for disengaged (CBI) (CIPD) • 70% engaged workers have good understanding of customer needs compared with 17% of disengaged (PWC) If Einstein was right in defining madness as doing the same thing again and again in the hope of achieving a different result, then it seems that the L&D HR profession among others are in the group hug syndrome with an underlying theme of “I’ve made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts”.

Why persist in investing in an approach with marginal gains when we know that it cannot deliver what is required by both consumers and leaders? If we did this in other parts of a business we would soon be bankrupt. Let’s examine some other evidence: Sara Rynes in the Academy of Management Journal (2007) describes the gap between the science (evidence) and practice as so persistent and pervasive that some have despaired if it will ever be narrowed. In other words, evidence based reality in the field loses out against what people choose to believe as a result of inherited but failing models. It’s as though people are trapped in a form of thinking that is acceptable to the profession, but ineffective.

A simple but telling question is “How many learning professionals check to see if the interventions that they have delivered are reflected in an improvement in performance andbusiness productivity?” The truth is that not many do and once again, referring to the CIPD report, the research found that only 11% of HR professionals see it as the role of the HR function to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership and management training. That surely has to be nonsense, especially in these turbulent times! Everyone in an organisation, whatever their role, must ensure that what they deliver impacts directly or indirectly on the business bottom line and adds value. Otherwise it is

a waste of time, effort and money that could be better employed.

Most organisations constantly seek innovative ways of improving and growing the business. They actively seek and encourage innovation, new ideas, they adopt lean practices, delayer and outsource. However, training persistently assumes that giving people knowledge actually works.

The reality is that it rarely does.

Acknowledging the truth - just acknowledge the evidence Recognise and accept that the biggest challenge that HR and Learning and Development professionals face is the persistent problem that most knowledge inputs fail to translate into behavioural change and tangible business results. It has been a persistent problem for over 60 years, so why not accept it and move on? We either escape the trap of legacy models that hold us back or continue with Einstein’s theory of madness.

If we did this in other parts of a business we would soon be bankrupt.

We also need to acknowledge that the days of throwing money and time on training programmes are over. Organisations today quite rightly demand value for money and a meaningful return-oninvestment (ROI).

Unless professionals and business leaders accept that learning rarely changes behaviours we will continue to repeat the same mistake of the past five or six decades. It is ‘can do’ attitudes that drives behaviours, builds engagement and increases performance.

The time to do something else has surely now arrived!

However, I have made some big sweeping statements about the ineffectiveness of knowledge training and you may need time to take a deep breath and follow-up the research. By the way, I really do believe in knowledge training – in my experiences in corporate life there was nothing else available.

But, and there’s always a but, it has to be relevant and applicable to your business context.

Neville Gaunt, CEO Mind Fit Ltd transforming business performance. www.mindfitltd.com

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If it was good enough for Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, is often described as extraordinary because of his outstanding qualities. Mandela himself always credited his culture with giving him a moral compass, as well as the leadership and other skills that enabled him to become a universally revered figure.

The Feg Beti of the Beti people of Cameroon, stipulates that as human beings, we are all beneficiaries of the work and commitment of the people who came before us. Therefore, we too have a duty to do everything we can to ensure that we contribute to humanity to the best of our ability by working hard to achieve our life goals, committing fully to the development of whatever community we find ourselves in, and improving ourselves.

I drew inspiration from this African lifestyle philosophy to create a programme that provides leadership and self-improvement courses.

Many of us need help when it comes to public speaking! The self-improvement programme I deliver through Medzan

Lifestyle includes public speaking courses based on the Feg Beti principles, and public speaking techniques that the Beti have used for millennia to improve their performance at the discussion tree. Speaking at the discussion tree, with no microphone, Power Point or autocue, surrounded by hundreds of rowdy individuals, can be extremely scary. But there are techniques to help you overcome fear and shyness, and connect with your audience.

These include, for instance, visualising people as your favourite animals or plants, and gradually learning to regard the listeners not as your antagonists, but as a group of persons engaged in the same task as you, i.e. trying to contribute to humanity to the best of their ability.

As someone who was crippled by shyness for decades, I am living proof that after working through the Feg Beti principles (on which the six stages of my public speaking courses are based –Acceptation, Edulcoration, Differentiation, Absorption, Relaxation and Harmonisation), even the shyest person on earth can undertake any public speaking

“Speaking at the discussion tree, with no microphone, Power Point or autocue, surrounded by hundreds of rowdy individuals, can be extremely scary”

commitment. Having learned that excellence is the art of conquering one’s weaknesses, I feel privileged to have been able to help so many master this art and, remember, you too can learn the skills to realise your own potential.

Sylvie Aboa-Bradwell is the CEO and Founder of Medzan Lifestyle www.medzanlifestyle.com

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Dreamalism

Dreamalism, a recurring theme that attempts to preserve the aspirations and dreams of people all around the world as they struggle in the pursuit of liberation, expression, freedom of speech and prosperity.

tel: +44 79 8080 5555 hazem@sannib.com • www.sannib.com

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

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Focus on e-learning Working at 40,000 feet up in the sky there is a lot more to being one of the world’s cabin crew than you might think. With competition as fierce as ever to get a step on the plane’s ladder joining this high flying workforce might feel like a distant dream.

They are daring to mix e-learning with corporate video and throw in a little comedy to create an entirely uniquely memorable training experience. The simple idea has been named (Comed) e-learning. We visited Emil and David to hear more.

So what made you want to create Comed(e-learning)?

audience in 140 characters or less.

I found myself spending more and more time on Twitter until eventually I decided that I had to start making some money in order to justify my actions to my family. To this end I started the social media agency “That Lot” to consult businesses and brands on how to effectively reach out through Twitter, Facebook etc.

David Schneider: It comes from my interest in Twitter. “Interest” is very much an understatement really, a more closer description would be an obsession and addiction to Twitter.

I am essentially an actor, writer and comedian, although when Twitter came along I discovered a medium in which I could say all sorts of things directly to a global

I have been doing a lot of lecturing to this end, through Guardian Masterclasses etc and felt it would be a good idea to translate this Twitter related course to an e-learning medium. I was put in touch with Emil by someone in my company, who identified this unique technology as one in which we could translate the humour in what I was doing into online

training.

And really it then all grew from there and now we are offering our collaboration to the world of Learning and Development.

So Emil, you are from the e-learning side of this venture. What is it you do that is different that would excite a potential Learning and Development professional?

Emil: My company e-learning WMB has been going since 2003 and during that time we have seen very little innovation in the industry.

The courses produced by most companies are almost indistinguishable from the those produced 10 years ago. Flat and very similar to PowerPoint presentations with a few button presses.

We have taken a very different approach and examined what works best from the traditional chalk and talk method of training and tried to emulate that within our e-learning. What we do is far more akin to producing small documentaries but with added e-learning interactivity.

When we did some initial courses we discovered, rather unsurprisingly, that when screens had some humour added to

them, the retention of facts on those screens was significantly higher. From there on it was a natural progression to team up with David, who really knows what does (and does not) work comedically to create the most effective e-learning possible.

David: I have to agree with that sentiment. I started life teaching in academia and I often found that if you wrapped a learning point up in a joke it would really aid retention of that associated fact.

Using the software that e-Learning WMB have created really leaves no barriers to my comedic imagination in what we can do to make something funny and consequently more memorable.

If I want to write myself on to

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the moon or at the bottom of the sea, just to make a joke and emphasise a learning point, I can do that quickly using e-learning WMB’s software.

Essentially what I am saying is that there are no limits in what we can do, we film in front of a green screen and can then put the actor or actors into whatever scenario you want.

So how would this apply to a corporate induction, per se? What would be the process you would follow to implement an online induction?

Emil An induction is an ideal scenario for us, because we can create an e-learning with presenters appearing in a number of different locations within a business, without ever having to fly all over the world etc. Most of the time we shoot the green screen and then use the backgrounds - often taken directly from the company’s own website.

I hope I am not making this sound like a corporate video, because it is not. If you were to look quickly over your shoulder you

might think this the case, but the e-learning is full of interactive elements. 3D blocks that can be picked up and thrown, books with pages that can be turned, buttons etc. It is very much an interactive environment which the user is invited to explore with their mouse in order to achieve their learning goals.

So with all this technology and visual humour going on, is the trainee going to get distracted?

David: There is always a balance between humour and getting your point across; that is the challenge and is what makes it so fascinating to do. Essentially what I aim to do is make the major learning points stand out so that they are memorable as well as provide a level of humour which keeps people interested so their attention does not wane.

A good example is in a course we did recently for the largest housing association in the UK - Places for People. We found that by using props such as a ventriloquist’s dummy, we could

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

repeat facts through the dummy so they would get greater emphasis in

the presentation. For instance we would say “There are 3,000 homes in this development etc.” and then turn to the dummy and ask him how many homes there were at which point he’d answer repeating the fact. It is a very simple example, but it shows how with comedy you can use all sorts of normally nonsensical devices to emphasise a point.

What’s more the audience would be smiling, enjoying the joke and consequently be paying more attention as a result.

We have to constantly strike a balance between adding jokes and distracting from the learning, but I think we do this quite well.

Emil: Indeed in a recent independent study of 102 users, 98% said they agreed or strongly agreed that they understood the subject after the e-learning, the other 2% was neutral. This is very strong

evidence that what we are doing is effective.

With all this attention to detail and production values, is this type of training not beyond the scope of most organisations?

David: That’s the brilliance of it I suppose; let’s face it, our aim is not to remake Avatar or Gravity!

The technology is really quite light on its feet. It’s easy to just slot in the environments and make changes. I have been told that we are in fact less costly than most of the competition since it is actually far less expensive to film than illustrate concepts.

Emil: What we do is comparatively inexpensive, but of course you can do this all yourself. e-Learning WMB make the software Jackdaw Cloud - available on our

website so anyone can have a go at creating courses in the cloud.

The seduction is in playing with all the environments and doing something really creative, but if you plan on using humour I would stick to the professionals. I think [laughing] some earlier work we did pre-David would possibly bear testament to that.

Further details of Comed (e-Learning) can be found at: http://www.elearningwmb.com/ page/comed-e-learning An account for the Jackdaw Cloud software can be immediately set up here - no payment needed: http://www. elearningwmb.com/content/ jackdaw-account-setup

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

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Employment law – Springing the changes Spring is traditionally a time when the Government introduces new changes in employment law. This year is no exception with radical changes being introduced that create a new landscape for UK employment law 6th April 2014 has been the introduction of the power to levy penalties on employers who lose Tribunal claims.

Tribunals now have a discretionary power to impose a financial penalty on employers who lose at tribunal where the breach of employment rights has one or more aggravating features.

If the tribunal decides to exercise its discretion to make such an award, the amount of the penalty will be 50% of any financial award. The penalty is be subject to a minimum threshold of £100 and an upper ceiling of £5,000.

Where a non-financial award is made, the tribunal is able to apply a monetary value. Employers qualify for a reduction of 50% if they pay the penalty within 21 days.

Introduction of mandatory pre claim Acas conciliation On 6 April 2014, compulsory pre-claim Acas conciliation were brought in requiring potential claimants in employment tribunal proceedings to lodge details of their proposed employment tribunal claim with ACAS in the first instance using a EC form or telephoning Acas before bringing a claim.

At this point, Acas will contact the parties, offering them the opportunity to engage in pre-claim early conciliation (EC) with a nominated conciliation officer for a prescribed period of a month.

If either party refuses EC, or it is unsuccessful (for example if a settlement has not been reached within the prescribed period), the claimant will be issued with a certificate by Acas enabling them to proceed with issuing proceedings in the tribunal. If, however, the parties do agree to enter into EC at this pre-litigation stage, this will effectively “stop the clock” on the limitation period for presenting the claim to the tribunal whilst this takes place.

The introduction of mandatory pre claim Acas conciliation represents another radical reform of the employment tribunal system, following on from the introduction of the new fees

structure last year, in an apparent further attempt by the government to reduce the number of claims coming before the employment tribunal easing the current burden on the employment tribunal service which has stretched its resources in recent years given the prevailing economic climate.

As a related aside, recently published statistics have shown though that employment tribunal claims are already down 80% since the introduction of the new fee structures last year - something that is undoubtedly beyond the government’s wildest expectations (and perhaps intentions). It is anticipated that the introduction of early conciliation will result in a further drop in tribunal claims, with disputes being resolved at a pre-action stage.

The new fees structure is already subject to judicial challenge by the unions on the basis that it deprives employees that can’t afford to pay the issue and hearing fee (or where the costs of the fees simply does not make the litigation cost effective) access to justice.

The recently published statistics strengthen these arguments. It will be interesting to see how these issues play out in the courts, particularly with EC now in place and whether the fees structure remain in the long term in the circumstances.

Abolition of Discrimination questionnaires Also on 6 April 2014, discrimination questionnaires have been abolished. These enabled an individual to obtain information from their employer regarding discrimination and to use the information obtained as evidence in tribunal proceedings.

Extension of right to request flexible working The right to request flexible working will be extended to all employees with 26 weeks’ service, with effect from 6th April 2014. Currently, under existing legislation, this right is only afforded to employees who qualify as parents or carers. Employers will also no longer be required to follow the existing statutory procedure in dealing with flexible working requests. Instead they must consider all such requests in a ‘reasonable manner’. A statutory code of practice has also been introduced to give guidance to employers as to the meaning of ‘reasonable’. Employers will have the right to refuse requests on business grounds.

Imposition of financial penalties on employers who lose in the employment tribunal Also coming into force from

“Employment tribunal claims are already down 80% “

Following a major review of work place sickness absence, the government is introducing the Health and Work Service, a state funded health and work assessment and advisory service which will offer free occupational health assistance for employers, employees and GPs, including: • Independent assessment by occupational health professionals of employees who have been off sick for four weeks or more; and • Case management advice for employees with complex needs who require ongoing support to facilitate their return to work.

The government also intends to abolish the SSP record-keeping obligations and allow employers to keep records in a more flexible manner.

Final thoughts With changes in UK employment law continuing to be introduced at a breathless pace, it is vitally important that businesses keep up to date with the latest developments taking place in 2014. As a starting point, it is recommended that employers review their existing employment policies, practices and procedures in light of the latest changes to ensure they are consistent with best employment law practice so as to avoid unanticipated liabilities for their organisation.

Increase in statutory pay rates From 6th April 2014, the rate of statutory maternity, adoption, paternity and sick pay have all increased as follows: Statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay £138.18 per week Statutory sick pay £87.55 per week New approach to sickness absence management

Julian Cox, Head of Employment at Fletcher Day 0207 632 1442 for further details or to arrange a complimentary Employment Law Healthcheck for your business. www.fletcherday.co.uk

29

Focus on..

Performance

E

mployee performance is often very misunderstood. I want to give you a sense of why I think this to be the case.

Let us start with a simple scenario. Sam is a very competent saleswoman and she works for a company who we will call ‘Old School’. Sam is in charge of selling a product which has become less easy to sell in recent months. Customers seem to be buying a competitor’s product which better meets their requirements. The recently implemented Old School CMS is time consuming and clunky whilst the company have recently introduced additional reporting procedures to try and control cost. All of this has created more bureaucracy for Sam. Her figures show a decline in performance from the previous year and going into her quarterly review, Sam feels frustrated, vulnerable and unsure about what to do.

During the meeting, her manager Nick, suggests that Sam should try harder to sell Old School’s products. “Yes it is tough but you need to be more innovative in your approach and need to try even harder” he tells her as he awards a ‘Requires Performance Improvement’ grade. Sam had already being working very hard but at least she is now sure about what to do. She leaves her review meeting feeling completely demoralised and the first thing she does is to phone a recruitment agency. The question is was Sam to blame?

A traditionalist like Nick might say yes. Yet what this example hopefully shows, is that an individual’s performance is actually impacted by many

different factors out with the control of the individual. In Old School we saw external changes to the market in the way of new competition as well as significant internal change imposed upon Sam. What we’ve seen is the greater system impact her total performance leaving Sam stuck as something of a bystander to events. The renowned late American industrialist Edward Deming talked about the 85/15 rule – that in certain circumstances the system was responsible for up to 85% of an individual’s actual performance. We could argue about the actual weighting of this ratio but he highlights a very important point. If Nick had understood this he could approach the problem differently and work with Sam to look at the decline of performance in a more constructive way.

The misunderstanding of the multifaceted nature of performance can be hugely detrimental to business success and individual wellbeing. I’m not saying for one minute we have an abdication of individual responsibility, but surely if we recruit the right people in the first place and they pass their probation period, they’re competent to work for the company? I’ll leave you with one last thought, imagine how nicer work would be without a blame culture…

David Jack is the owner of Ascend www.ascendhr.co.uk, an Edinburgh based HR consultancy.

David can be contacted on 07525 8551133 or david@ascendhr.co.uk

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

Out of Office

In the 80’s, the source for office gossip was found in the print room. The sound of disgruntled employees bemoaning their existence, drowned out by the clunking of monochrome memorandums being slowly churned out.

By the time we got to the 90’s, printing became less centralised and so a new meeting point was established around the water cooler.

Fellow colleagues were character assassinated in hushed tones amongst the sound of glugging air bubbles rising through the bottle.

When the ban on public smoking came into effect in the 00’s, the government improved our health but inadvertently contributed to

office anarchy by relocating the meeting point outside the office. Free from the confines of thinly partitioned walls, people could now pass judgement on their bosses while safely out of earshot.

I once frequented print rooms, drank from water coolers and shivered next to wall mounted ashtrays. But today, as the boss, I no longer have that privilege.

Now when I happen across shivering staff in the car park, their voices drop to a whisper as they try in vain not to make eye contact. In turn, I hurry on my way, pretending not to see them.

I despise that brushed aluminium monolith that allures my team and steals valuable man hours from my business. Yet as much as I resent the thing, I know it serves a purpose and so I

begrudgingly accept its existence.

Recently I saw a shabby looking gentleman fiddling with the base of the ashtray.

He froze as I approached him before bolting up the street, leaving a trail of fag butts behind.

Just as I started picking up the broken pieces of the ashtray, the next shift of smokers came out...

As they scrutinised the scene before them, I knew I had some explaining to do.

Colin Woodley www.landbasedmammal.com

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

30

International

Let’s stop squabbling about Europe

Viewers would have heard the talking heads indulge themselves in an orgy of sound bites over the “Europe Question”, a question as binary as “in” or “out”, fed on a twenty-four hour diet of regurgitated views. Observers would look for the rampaging invaders amassing on our borders and looking for the evidence that the UK’s hard fought economic recovery was set to spiral into the depths. It won’t.

Perspective affords a more-than binary view and is needed at home before the doomsayers write the future off. To build upon our fledgling economic recovery we need the elixir of growth and exports to fuel the future, help society, jobs and earnings.

The UK isn’t terminal or requires major surgery, though we do need exports and growth to maintain our recovery. Rather than posing binary questions, the real question is “Where could the UK find the potion of growth?”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently noted that the UK will be the fastest growing of the G7 nations this year, that the UK will grow 2.9% in 2014, up from earlier estimate and would see growth of 2.5% in 2015. So while we are not fully out of the fire, if we plot the right path, we can avoid the worse and build for growth.

Smoke still smoulders across parts of Europe with Euro Zone growth forecast 1.2% this year and not much more in 2015. The Club Med are hampering Germany, our largest trading bloc is unable to drive our growth. With that background, where should UK businesses turn to?

Much like the industrialists of old, for businesses and entrepreneurs alike seeking their fortunes they need to explore foreign climes and bring

back riches from the new world.

It is a widely held view overseas that the UK is highly regarded in diverse fields such as R&D, Technology, Engineering, Goods and Services and as true innovators. Before setting sail, budding entrepreneurs need to learn a new lexicon for their quest and know their CEEMEA from their BRICs, the MINTs to the Pacific Alliance. Some old friends remain and many more exist and all could hold future riches.

Many fast-growth nations welcome our services, our industrialists and our entrepreneurs, so where do we set sail?

Our former trade partners in the BRICs are mixed. According to IMF data, Brazil growth is set to be 1.8% in 2014 and 2.7% in 2015 whilst Russia is set for 1.3% and 2.3% respectively. India is enjoying 5.4% and 6.4% this and next year while the star remains China whose economic growth could top 7.5% in 2014 and reach 7.3% in 2015. The East remains the leader, with China and India both historically great trading partners, so explore the East.

While people were scared about uniform banana shapes the Pacific Alliance, solidified in 2013, is all about trade. It links the strong economies of Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in Latin America. Bloomberg has forecast 2014-15 GDP growth in Chile of 4.33%, Colombia 4.58%, Mexico 3.68% and Peru at 5.53%. The Alliance has a unified and positive attitude to foreign investment, the role of the market in the economy and respectful for intellectual property. It is well worth an excursion to the Pacific Alliance nations for leaders planning a “business trip” trip to Latin America during the World Cup. The MINTs, comprising Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey are a new entrant in the lexicon and together hold impressive wealth growth potential when looked at average earnings, a boom for their economies, businesses and people. Retailers, Services and many sectors could benefit from investing in these markets. In

Average Income Growth Mexico will grow income from US$10.6k in 2012 to $48.0k by 2050, Indonesia from $3.6k to $21.0k in the same period. Similarly Nigeria will go from $1.4k to $12.6k and Turkey from $10.6k to $48.5k from 2012 to 2050. Most are in close proximity to other large and growing nations, Mexico sharing Latin and North America, Indonesia closer to Vietnam, Malaysia and China, Nigeria straddling Africa with Turkey meeting East with West. With fast income growth astute businesses in the consumer goods and infrastructure sectors are booking flights – the MINTs are a group worth further attention.

Ertse Group Bank economists predict GDP growth of 2.4% in the CEE region for 2014, the best performers being Poland with 3.1% growth, Romania with 3% and the Czech Republic slated to return 2% and led by Latvia due to post GDP growth in 2014-15 of 4.13%.

Poland is largely unaffected by the Ukraine and Russia issue with less than 6% of Polish exports going to the Ukraine and Russia.

Poland had stable conditions throughout the last four years and is growing again due in part to rising private consumption rates without inflation, an economy that avoided recession where many didn’t. The Middle East is back again with great GDP numbers due in from Qatar 5.6%, United Arab Emirates 3.8% and Saudi Arabia 4.2% some getting close to the 5.7% Kazakhstan are due to post.

There are many fast growth markets suitable to invest in or trade with for a range of services and sectors. Each country has varying degrees of red tape and barriers, and many are more conducive to investment and business than you may think.

Setting your sails for growth in international markets not only puts you in some of the most exciting markets available, it is also more

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26935148 Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/best-emerging-markets-2014-countries

© Maz Jackson

If beings in nearby galaxies could receive and understand recent media broadcasts they would be concerned about the UK’s looming economic disaster created by the furore on the Europe debates, the future of Scotland and scaremongering that teeming hoards were about to invade our shores, all choking off our ability to create growth, jobs and to provide for our population.

preferable than waiting from a referendum to play itself out, whatever the eventual outcome.

“Much like the industrialists of old, for businesses and entrepreneurs alike seeking their fortunes they need to explore foreign climes and bring back riches from the new world”.

Graeme Read is CEO of 3R Partnership an Investor in and Growth Advisor to the international recruitment industry with experience in over 30 countries.

Source: IMF, Goldman Sachs, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25548060 Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-29/qatar-china-top-ranking-of-frontier-and-emerging-markets.html

31

The Geek recruiter

The world of the recruiter is constantly changing with the launch of an ever increasing array of new technologies. Here is my take on what looks good.

Finding candidates Today we have had to learn how to exploit the various online locations where those hard to find candidates may be lurking.

Costs for outsourcing candidate attraction to third party vendors was expensive but now with the likes of online platforms Elance or Freelancer we can work directly with individuals will source CVs, contact lists, email addresses, etc.

How to differentiate I was always looking for new ways to promote my recruitment brand as different from the competition, but I was limited to my own imagination and budget on how I could get this message across. Today you can tap into some of the most imaginative creatives in the world for tiny amounts of investment through sites like Fiverr.com.

My favourite is the Stop-Go animation for $5, who can lose?

Less admin more selling Over last few years the administrative burden on Recruitment Firms has escalated leaving us to carry the cost of compliance, however recently I’ve witnessed some cracking solutions aimed at easing this burden. The ones I’ve heard positive feedback on are,

Collaboration I’m finding that there is more collaboration between UK recruiters than ever before.

I’m personally familiar with this in the US, where split fees are more the norm, but it’s impressed me to see this becoming more popular in the UK. Check out DropBox, Huddle and Google apps for making sharing information easier.

International More and more I hear recruiters being asked by their clients to locate UK nationals to take up assignments overseas. With the likes of Skype we are not incurring expensive telephone costs and video conferencing could become the norm for interviews (watch out for 3D coming soon). Language translation software like Babylon is fine but I hire translators from Odesk now.

A final thought There is one piece of technology which has been around since the birth of the recruitment industry but which I believe is being underused. It seems less popular with the younger Social Media native generation however it has proved to be the single biggest aid to findings candidates and generating fees. It’s called of course the telephone, or am I getting old?

www.canddi.com Provides the contact details for everyone who visits your web site. www.onfido.co.uk Low cost automated background checking of candidates. www.iqx.co.uk Highly configurable Temp Desk Management software. www.zapier.com Allows you to link apps automatically. www.synety.com VOIP linked directly into your CRM system.

What these companies deliver that I like, is not only software but expertise delivered as support at no additional cost.

Russell Dalgleish, Managing Partner, Exolta Capital Partners, russell@exolta.com

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

32

Feature..China

RECRUITMENT IN CHINA: THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS.

and CVs from non-Chinese candidates wishing to work in China – in part because of the difficult labour market in Britain and Europe. Some of these have expert knowledge, say in the financial sector, which can be transferred anywhere in the world. Others have some Chinese language skills and with assistance may find a place in China.

The Interview

How do Chinese candidates perform at interview? Very well, in fact. Allowance has to be made for the fact that English is not their first language, but many are fluent, well prepared and well-presented. They are generally socially adept, and able to read and anticipate the needs of the client company. I conducted for example a series of preliminary interviews in China for one of our clients with twelve candidates chosen from over 100 applicants. Any one of these candidates could have been appointed to the job; only one of the twelve had their own distinct dress-code, which might not have been quite correct for a financial position.

HR China is a small recruitment company specialising in the Financial, IT and Legal sectors. It places staff in both Chinese and foreign companies, in China and Europe, including Britain. As a small company, we cannot hope to compete with the major recruiters. But we have several major advantages in recruitment – we are swift in responding to clients’ needs, and we are often in China visiting our own clients. The English language is also an advantage which cannot be overlooked. We also decided early on that we could never afford to open expensive offices in Shanghai or Beijing – it would have to be 50/50 partnerships.

How did we do it?

But we did have local friends and contacts, and set up a network of partnerships with Chinese recruitment companies on the ground in China. This has proved invaluable in giving us insider knowledge about local recruitment gossip. We are also not saddled with the increasing wage bill of many foreign recruitment companies, as salary levels and office rentals in China move ever upwards.

Candidates – Chinese and Foreign

We have a large database of registered candidates – both Chinese and foreign; a network of partnerships; and global reach.

But what of the candidates from China – how do they compare with candidates from other countries? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

When we first began to operate we were concerned at some stories in the foreign and Chinese press that the CV Resumes of Chinese candidates might not be accurate.

We were pleasantly surprised to discover, from both our own experience, and detailed research by a specialist company, that the level of mis-representation in the CV Resumes of Chinese candidates was no higher than in other parts of the world, generally honest and truthful, but of course requiring the usual due diligence by the

hiring company. In the UK, social media now plays a part in this vetting process, and doubtless in China people are also becoming more cautious in what social details they reveal in their blogs and Twitters.

Many Chinese candidates in the financial sector have a high level of formal qualification – many at Master’s or Ph.D. level. The university English language entrance requirement also means that they can perform well in that language (unlike their peer group from Britain or Europe, who may have no Chinese at all). Again this is in contrast to Britain, where more emphasis might be laid on experience than formal qualifications. But there is now some uncertainty among both employers and candidates in China as to whether several years spent in acquiring extra qualifications can bring the desired job and salary level.

We also work with Chinese financial institutions outside China, particularly in London. Here our mandates include the apparently simple – finding a PA for the CEO (this generated the most CV Resumes for any post that HR China has ever received – a reflection on the enormous Chinese community in London). The most hard to fill has been a request by a Chinese bank for a Chinese-speaking compliance officer This was an extremely difficult role to fill, and eventually even the bank’s Beijing HR department admitted , in a charming phrase, that they were perhaps ‘looking for fairies’. However, this kind of request will not go away – all of the major Chinese banks are now in London – CIC, CICC, ABC, BoC, BComm, CCB, ICBC, and even the People’s Bank and SAFE, not to mention the major Chinese insurance companies such as PICC, and also China Merchants. Their power, influence and staffing needs can only grow.

Foreign Candidates for China

We receive a large number of applications

The majority were women – perhaps reflecting their innate language ability and social skills, and an interesting comment on the way in which developments world-wide are favouring even in China a different skillset to the old manual labour / office worker pattern.

There are of course some major differences in China of which the recruiter needs to be aware: there seems to be a distinct grading of universities, which is not always apparent to the foreigner, and is more sophisticated than the rather plain ‘Oxford and Cambridge’ model of the UK. These Chinese universities will also have bred alliances between peer groups of students which may last a lifetime, and an outsider, even a Chinese outsider, may never be able to understand. You just have to take advice and watch the interplay.

The Future of Work

There can be no doubt that global communication has become very much easier, between China and the rest of the world. Preliminary interviews can be conducted anywhere by Skype – the location of the interviewer and interviewee is now immaterial. Employment contracts can be exchanged by email and redrafted swiftly. All this tips the process in favour of the light-footed recruitment agency.

manufacturing has also helped. Similarly, Britain has moved to leisure industries, and the preservation of its precious and limited environment. These are aspirations often cited by Chinese policy-makers. And there is one big difference with the past: China now has an educated and experienced workforce, and with its innate intelligence, and tradition of sheer hard work, it will find a way forward that may yet become a model for the whole world to follow.

Perhaps more seriously, there is a kind of cultural blindness which afflicts even educated and intelligent people in the West. I spoke a few years ago to a group of MBA students from a top financial university in London.

They were staying for a month in Shanghai on ‘work experience’ in a five star hotel in Pudong, looking out onto the Bund. I asked them if they had culture shock, and not one of the 200 lifted their hand. I told them that they had a big problem, because I had been coming to China since 1985, and my culture shock got worse each time – I was always discovering new things about China. The students, staying in a five star hotel and being taken daily to their work by mini-bus, was not a good way to plunge deep in the work experience in China…. It should be mentioned that China is not a hardship posting, in terms of salaries, accommodation, restaurants or facilities. But what is alarming to ex-pats is of course the air pollution in both Beijing and Shanghai.

Developments in China are less easy to predict. The economy is slowing, and jobs are becoming scarcer. The one-child policy will, in the next decade, reduce the number of employees to retired persons to a ratio of 2:1 – against 30:1 in the 1960s.

This also means that one employed person could in fact be financially responsible for two parents and two grandparents as well as a partner and child. This may put pressure on salaries. Similarly, women will be required by the state to work for longer before they receive their pensions.

On the positive side, the UK has passed through a similar period of social change, and found that the creation of jobs in service industries can fill the gap in some ways, while the movement into hi-tech

John Adams, Director, HR China j.s.adams@hrchina.co.uk

33

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

BRANDING How does your brand communicate with your target market, do you stand out from your competitors?

When asking what it is someone does for a living, a common response is the name of a profession. This will tell you two things: one, that the person is one of many, that he or she is potentially doing things in her working life the same way as everyone else; two, that he or she has not thought much about branding. In the same way that telling someone something different about the way you work is challenging, there is a challenge branding a company based on their way of working that is different from their competitors!

Not all branding is successful – much in the same way that telling someone you are a ‘crystalline fenestration consultant’ when, in fact, you are a window cleaner gives questionable attention to a fairly common process. However, some branding is very successful and conveys not only something about what you do day-to-day but also something about your core values. ‘Nike’ is a classic example of branding that has an association with the hard work and perseverance of its

founders who built the company up from nothing and that has consistently communicated that message ever since.

Putting personality into a brand is an intuitive and often successful approach. A story about their interactions with clients, potential customers and the tools of their work can aid a creative agency in finding a quintessential image or message that conveys what it is they do so well. These images or messages are invaluable tools for creative teams and can be extended judiciously across all media platforms.

For larger businesses reliability and quality are watchwords. Finding something unique to say about the attributes of an inanimate object or a large company with many different stakeholders is a different kind of challenge to that of a sole trader. If a creative agency are working with an existing brand of this kind an audit to look at how well it interacts with customers is helpful and will allow them to recommend fundamental changes to design and/or changing its focus to reflect new customer touch points or technologies.

Josh Cone, Brand Marketing Manager, Hutton Design Associates www.huttondesign.com

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TeamPlayer 360 • Issue 1

34

Focus on..

Travel and Tourism Since 2010 tourism has been the fastest growing sector in the UK in employment terms, according to a report

by Deloitte, responsible for one-third of the net increase in UK jobs between 2010 and 2012 and estimated to have been worth 126.9 billion in 2013 . Vanessa Champion talks to Nigel Bishop, Chief Executive of The Guild of Travel and Tourism, about the developments and opportunities in this fast-paced and exciting industry.

Ghardaia in the Algerian Desert. Photos courtesy of Wild Frontiers

It’s 3.30pm, Thursday afternoon, and Nigel has already covered half of the globe on the phone today. Nigel is a formidable and, importantly, a very likeable entity in the travel business, he is also a strong voice and intelligent lobbying partner for the industry.

Prior to Nigel founding The Guild, he held an esteemed career in the commercial, planning and marketing division with one of the major household names in the travel industry, British Airways.

It is fair to say, that he has witnessed seismic change in the industry, not just owing to technology but also on many other

intrinsic levels. “Yes, it has changed hugely over the years,” he says. “One of the main improvements has been the professionalism of the industry. There are specialised and membership bodies now, including the Guild, which have raised the standard on practice and qualification.” It is true, with the advent of structured best practice for the industry, a career in travel and tourism is an incredibly attractive proposition.

The UK is going through a terrific period of increased numbers of visitors, particularly from China. “In the UK both outbound and inbound tourism is such an important part

of the economy, it was especially strong last year on the back of the Olympics but it remains strong this year too. You only have to walk around London today to notice the number and range of visitors from all over the world.”

On the flip side, rise and fall of economies affect businesses all round, but maybe none more than when instability, whether it is political, environmental or, of course, war, causes a sudden unpredicted hiatus of visitors which can shatter the infrastructure of livelihoods dependent on tourism.

“There are extreme challenges in certain

countries, owing to civil unrest, for instance Syria, which is such a wonderful country and Egypt. I was talking to someone this morning who was saying that in Aswan it was empty, nothing. This has a devastating impact on local economies, from restaurants, hotels to guides and retail and suppliers.” Tourism is such a key factor of the economy of so many countries and we should never underestimate its value and importance.

It is one of the reasons that The Guild of Travel and Tourism is such a prominent voice in the industry. “The Guild is a

35

TeamPlayer 360 • may 2014

the current routes are above capacity.

Heathrow expansion is also vital.” These proposals will continue to cause major debate, as they have an impact both positive and negative on the country. Either way you look at it, if they go ahead, there will a resultant need for recruiting people from construction to hospitality. We hope.

So from domestic expansion to international emergence, which “non-mainstream” countries are exciting Nigel in 2014?

“Myanmar over the last two to three years has witnessed an increased interest in inbound tourism. And there’s Algeria.

The Guild has been appointed by the Algerian Ministry of Tourism to support the promotion of the country to the UK market. Algeria is certainly an interesting and beautiful country. It is also incredibly rich culturally, twice over in fact. You have in the Mediterranean region with the Roman historical sites and then in contrast in the Sahara desert you have the ancient tribes and desert cultures, where even today you can witness desert trading that has been continuous for over 2,000 years. Algeria also has such exciting adventure travel opportunities. Other countries fertile for UK travel companies to watch are Serbia, North Cyprus, Montenegro and of course Brazil which will be a major player as the World Cup and Olympics race towards us.”

So maybe consider a strategy to broach business in these regions and then recruit the best staff with language skills to support you in your pursuit. Be ahead of the game.

“I’ve always loved the industry.” Nigel concludes. “It’s exciting, ‘glamorous’ and fun. Not only is it very people orientated, it also changes rapidly. Never a dull moment!”

I decided that must be what keeps him so young and full of energy. Hmm, maybe I’ll change career…

professional membership body made up of individuals, businesses and also corporates, the latter of which are very much treated as partners. We work together to lobby government directly, lending support to important issues affecting our business such as the Airport Tax, Connectivity, the Heathrow expansion, HS2. Our weight behind such important decisions made at government level supports our membership, which includes Chief Executives, serious business executives, many marketing and consultancy companies, general managers of hotels and Directors of Tourist Boards and suppliers to the industry.

We really are a unique organisation.”

Glad that Nigel mentioned these two most contentious plans on the tourism debate plate today, I was keen to hear his take on the proposals for Heathrow expansion and the HS2. Like or loathe the plans, these are two giant snowballs that gather polemical layers on both sides. “I am also Deputy Chair of the Transport Committee for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Speed is only one factor in the debate, it must be remembered that the point behind HS2 is to provide more capacity. At the moment the existing routes just cannot cope, and with the predictions of increased growth of inbound and domestic tourism,

“Tourism is such a key factor of the economy of so many countries and we should never underestimate its value and importance”.

Nigel Bishop, Chief Executive of The Guild of Travel and Tourism The Guild of Travel and Tourism are offering a special membership price with this publication of just £400 for corporate membership and just £150 for business membership www.traveltourismguild.com or call +44 (0)20 7583 6333

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