Recruiter - February 2016

Business intelligence for recruitment and resourcing professionals

DR JOHN SULLIVAN Recruiting trends for 2016 BERRY RECRUITMENT Matthew Morehead’s brilliant career

February 2016

INCORPORATING Recruitment Matters

> T H E YE A R A H E AD Supplier expertise p. 33

S P O N S O R E D BY

GLOCAL STRATEGY Parachutes fail in emerging markets

www.recruiter.co.uk

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Topping the FAST 50 chart, BIE Executive’s Rob Walker shares his winning ways

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24

C R ONT ENT S 08

ING PORAT INCOR itment Recru ers Matt

COV ER IMAG E | PA L H ANSEN

A

NEWS

05 New year, new jobs The early days of 2016 saw the UK jobs market boosted by record vacancies

06 NHS Trust uses selfies to help fill vacancies Social media is helping attract a new audience

06 McCANN looks outside the box for talent A London ad agency puts non-traditional talent at the top of its agenda

07 Thoughts from...

David Bowie, Dame Diana Rigg, Coors

07 Star recruit: Charles Carson, former Downton Abbey butler 08 This was the month that was...

10 Contracts & Deals

B

TRENDS

D 19

43

FEATURES Recruiter FAST 50

This year’s list, compiled by Clearwater International and sponsored by Hitachi, reveals record levels of growth — and a record number of newbies on list

24 THE BIG STORY

BIE Executive was the top company in the FAST 50.

Chief executive Rob Walker shares his secrets of success

07

41 Advertising feature The Year Ahead

E COMMUNITY 40 Careers Agency/In-house 43 My brilliant recruitment career: Matthew Morehead 45 Employability 46 Business Advice 48 Movers & Shakers 49 Recruiter Contacts 50 The Last Word: Matt Churchward

12 Insight Dr John Sullivan reveals 12 hot recruiting trends for 2016

C 16 17 17

INTERACTION

50 19

Agency View: Samantha Maxwell-Reed Web chat Soundbites

I M AG E S | A K I N FALO P E / G ETTY / ISTO C K

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See your recruitment agency through Eploy.

It’s your business. You know what it needs to succeed.

If you want to achieve your goals, you need to visualise WKHP ȴUVW :LWK (SOR\ 5HFUXLWPHQW 6RIWZDUH \RX FDQ set your targets‌ then smash them.

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Jane Emerson

Jobs on this week : 28 Perm GP this month : ÂŁ21,886 Perm GP target : ÂŁ20,000

Connected calls : 65 CV’s sent this week : 53

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Jessica Smith

Connected calls : 50 Jobs on : 22

Sarah Fry

Placement GP this month : ÂŁ26.4K Interviews this week : 35 Candidate meetings this week : 5

Team Stats CV’s sent

Team GP this month : ÂŁ127,687 Jane Emerson Sarah Fry Brad Whitehead Sienna Holmes Jessica Smith John Wyatt

ÂŁ28,265 ÂŁ26,451 ÂŁ21,886 ÂŁ18,431 ÂŁ16,760 ÂŁ15,894

178% 178 %

Tom

105 5%

Brad

98% 98 % 143% 143 %

Jessica John

Team CV’s sent vs Target

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12/01/2016 14:27

W E LCO M E

UPDATE

New year, new jobs WE LCO M E

SALES, ACCOUNTING & FINANCE joined healthcare and nursing positions in dominating job postings as the UK jobs market was boosted by record new vacancies and applicants in the early days of 2016.

Data from Reed.co.uk revealed in the first week of this year, more than 1.1m job applications were made on the job board and 60k new candidates had joined the site in search of a new job.

Sectors attracting the largest number of applicants in the first week of 2016, according to Reed.co.uk’s data, included admin secretarial and PA (170,492), customer service (73,137), accountancy (70,089), retail (65,544) and IT & telecoms (42,838).

Shedding light on which sectors were seeing the biggest increase in job postings in the first week of 2016, findings from job search engine Adzuna revealed healthcare and nursing saw 110,923 vacancies posted in 2016, up 20.8% than at this point last year. Sales roles had increased 22.9% to 63,230 posts and the accounting & finance sector witnessed postings rise to 73,877, up 4.8% on last year.

Conversely, the IT sector saw 87,825 postings advertised in January 2016, down 9.4% on January 2015, while 80,137 engineering roles were posted, down 0.6% in the corresponding period last year.

Unsurprisingly, London ranked as the top UK city in terms of applications in the first week of the new year with 83,298 applications, according to job board CV-Library. The capital was followed by Birmingham (28,124 applications), Manchester (19,851 applications) and Yorkshire cities Leeds (15,869 applications) then Sheffield (6,326 applications).

Reed.co.uk’s record number of applicants followed the launch of a revamped Love Mondays advertising campaign on New Year’s Day across national TV advertising and online. ●

VA C A N C I E S P O S T E D I N F I R S T W E E K O F 2 0 1 6

110,923 87,825

0.6% ADZ U NA

◄

ENGINEERING ROLES

9.4%

◄

4.8%

IT SECTOR

73,877

►

22.9%

►

20.8%

SALES ROLES

63,230

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE SECTOR

80,137

►

A

nd we’re off… to a dramatic start to 2016, with high volumes of job applications steaming up UK job boards and sizzling vitality within the ranks of our annual Recruiter FAST 50, prepared by Clearwater International.

As Clearwater’s Marcus Archer and Mark Maunsell report, 33 of our 2016 FAST 50 are new to our league table this year — two more than last year’s historic high of 31. Since the rankings are based on revenue compound annual growth rate over the three most recent annual “There’s reporting periods, never a dull this activity reflects moment in significant recruitment, under-the-surface and 2016 bubbling over some is set to be time. What more anything but evidence do we dull” need of an ambitious, driven industry?

Marcus and Mark also point out that single-sector strategies are paying off for a number of FAST 50 companies. Judging from some reports, healthcare and, especially, risk/compliance are two of the sectors to be operating right now, for both recruiters and their candidates.

With regard to risk/compliance, a new report from Robert Walters says “consistently high” demand for professionals in regulatory functions, for example, will drive salaries there by an average of 6%. Day rates and salaries for experienced professionals in some risk areas will go up even higher.

There’s never a dull moment in recruitment, and 2016 is set to be anything but dull.

GRAHAM SIMONS

H E A LT H C A R E A N D N U R S I N G

LEADER

DeeDee Doke, Editor WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 5

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NE WS

UPDATE



28,503 FOLLOWERS AS OF 14 JAN 2016

NHS Trust uses selfie power to recruit (L-r) Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust HR business partner Ruth Griffin and press and social media officer Katie Blackburn

SARAH MARQUET

In an effort to modernise its recruitment technique and overcome a skills shortage, Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust set out to harness the power of the ‘selfie’ and its relationship with social media.

The trust has challenged anyone who may see its recruitment ads in London train and tube stations to take a ‘selfie’ and share it on social media. It has offered a £30 retail voucher for the best snap.

Trust HR business partner Ruth Griffin told Recruiter hiring was usually conducted via NHS agencies

McCANN looks outside box for talent SARAH MARQUET

In exploring how it could make game-changing moves in a highly competitive industry, marketing and advertising agency McCANN London turned its focus to people, making an effort to hire diversely.

But diversity is about more than the age, sex, religion and race tick boxes on surveys — it is also about skill sets, McCANN’s head of talent Robert Stone tells Recruiter.

Stone (right), who joined the agency a year ago from sports giant adidas where he was a recruitment business partner, was specifically hired to help 6 RECRUITER

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FEBRUARY 2016

and job board NHS Jobs but, struggling to attract nurses specifically, it turned its attention to local buses.

And to entice nurses from London, it began advertising at train and tube stations around the capital.

reduce recruitment agency spend. However, leveraging ideas gleaned from his previous role is helping shape a new way of thinking.

“We are a creative industry, so you don’t have to go to a red brick university to be good at a job. But in the past, that’s where people have recruited from.

“Say we have a hospitality client. Let’s explore hiring someone that’s actually worked in that industry rather than marketing and advertising.”

And with the agency’s expertise, training can be given in areas they are lacking, while the firm benefits from the wealth of industry knowledge.

Stone says charity partners

are another source of creative talent. One of the charities McCANN works with is Art Against Knives, which helps young people with criminal histories gain work experience, employment or education.

“People from those sorts of backgrounds might not have the opportunity to go to university but they are creative thinkers, they live and breathe in this space. So why don’t we

However, by harnessing social media — and not just its own accounts — it is hoped the message will be spread much further.

Griffin said the trust has about 100 vacancies, currently covered by staff banks, “but it would be great if we could recruit into the large double figures. That would be fabulous”.

The trust has seen an uplift in application rate, she added.

The campaign runs until the beginning of February. ●

start to look at these avenues rather than the traditional graduate intake?”

In addition to hiring creative talent, McCANN is looking to fill other types of jobs with non-traditional talent. A former police officer was recently hired for a project manager role. He had no marketing or advertising experience, but skills learned on the beat, such as attention to detail and aligning multiple stakeholders, are transferrable.

While it is too early for tangible results, Stone sees the big win as having the buy-in from both the business, which had previously toyed with the idea, and hiring managers.

“Now they’re starting to understand this is a completely exciting way to look at things.”

While Stone is based in London, similar lines of thought are being explored in the wider business.

Find more daily news stories at recruiter.co.uk/news 14/01/2016 15:29

THOUGHTS FROM M… FROM…

Poul Pedersen, founder and managing director of Pedersen & Partners

THE LATE DAVID BOWIE

G LO BA L SINGING SUPERSTAR AND AC TOR

“I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody’s talents.”

Local recruiters needed to dig the dirt SARAH MARQUET

DAME DIANA RIGG

LE A DING BRITISH AC TRESS, SPEAKING ON A BBC R A DIO 2 PROGR AMME, ON WHY SO MANY BRITISH AC TO RS MANAGE TO LAND ROLES IN THE US

“We are so well-behaved. We turn up, we know our lines, we don’t ask for 80ft Winnebagos and ask for our PAs to be paid for and our own chef. We are incredibly good value. And I say this with pride actually.”

COORS BEER

A LINE FROM A COORS BEER COMPANY RECRUITMENT AD ON US TV

“When beer is your calling, you never clock out.”

I M AG E S | RE X / GE TTY

STA R RECRUIT

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JUDITH NICOL, WARREN PARTNERS’ DIRECTOR OF LEADERSHIP SERVICES, CONTEMPLATES DOWNTON ABBEY BUTLER CHARLES CARSON’S NEXT MOVE, FOLLOWING THE FINALE OF THE HIT ITV SHOW ON CHRISTMAS DAY: “In his role as the butler at Downton Abbey, Carson was the epitome of integrity and discretion when it came to the many goings-on both upstairs and downstairs in the Crawley household. Those qualities won’t go to waste now he has to move on because they make

IN EMERGING MARKETS, having a local team conduct reference checks is the only way to pick up someone’s sordid past, says Poul Pedersen, founder and managing partner of global executive search firm Pedersen & Partners. The company specialises in emerging markets.

“They have to speak the language to get the gossip out,” Pedersen told Recruiter.

Citing a general manager search in Albania for a multinational client, Pedersen said the candidate looked good both in person and on paper.

He had an MBA from the West, and was already a manager of a Western multinational.

But when local researchers looked into his background, they found he had been involved in a visa scam and had killed someone.

“You really need to be on the street and speak the local language to get those kinds of stories… Some people have done unsavoury things under communist rule and you won’t find that in English newspapers but you will find some kind of article in local media that you can dig out if you speak the local language.

“My belief is the ideal situation is a local country manager and then you can add expats at practice group level.”

The company puts particular emphasis on making sure the right person is leading operations in each country, which also presents a challenge.

In Finland, the firm was unable to successfully recruit the right local lead and had to pull its on-the-ground presence. It now operates there with a split-fee agreement with a Finnish firm. him an ideal candidate for to be found in the best In its 15 years, the a company secretary. company secretaries. headhunter has only “Dealing with due “If Carson takes diligence and compliance this new role, it will pulled out of two other is second nature for be important that Carson. Checking that he understands and countries: Bosnia, every box is ticked and balances the needs because the market all corporate protocol and demands of all the is respected is no company’s stakeholders, was too small to justify different to ensuring that from the most important the cost, and politically everything is in place if investors to the individual royalty were coming to shareholders lower down fraught Iran. However, Downton for the weekend. the food chain. Here the firm hopes to restart “And as a trusted again, his track record is adviser to both the family impeccable. operations in Iran in the and other members of “Finally, just like the staff, he has many years of very best butlers, while future. ● experience when it comes to making judgement calls, another useful skill

company secretaries may not be visible, they still have a key role to play.”

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NE WS

THIS WAS THE MONTH THAT WAS… Here is a round-up of some of the most popular news stories we have brought you on recruiter.co.uk since the January issue of Recruiter was published D E C E M B E R •‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒→ W E D, 9 D E C 2 0 1 5

GOVERNMENT PRESSES AHEAD WITH ‘DISAPPOINTING’ T&S LEGISLATION The government’s long awaited draft legislation on travel & subsistence (T&S) has been published and was immediately described by trade bodies representing umbrella and accountancy service providers as “disappointing”.

Following last November’s Autumn Statement, the draft legislation draft was very much as the staffing sector expected. However, it did provide clarity on where financial liability lies, where workers fail to pay the correct amount of tax. Following a further period of consultation on the technical aspects of the bill, which is due to close on 3 February, the new legislation is set to become law on 6 April as part of the Finance Bill 2016.  More: bit.ly/1Z7BQzs

MON, 14 DEC 2015

RECRUITER HOT 100: THE HOT 10 TECHNICAL RECRUITERS The 2015 Recruiter HOT 100 included 23 technical specialists compared with 20 last year, plus several more that include engineering or energy as additional specialisations.

The 2015 HOT 10 technicals represent £2.55bn sales turnover, ahead just 3.2% of last year, and around £277m in gross profit, ahead 8.3%.

Here is the HOT 10:

1 TRS Staffing Solutions 2 NRL 3 NES Global Talent 4 Kin-Tec Holdings 5 McGinley Support Services 6 Swift Worldwide Resources 7 Fircroft Engineering Services 8 Randstad CPE 9 CBSbutler 10 Options Resourcing  More: bit.ly/1Nnu2G9

T H U, 1 7 D E C 2 0 1 5

UPEX PIES SHUTS DOWN TEMPORARILY DUE TO LACK OF STAFF A Middlesbrough pie shop was forced to close its doors again after selling too much product for its scant workforce to cope with.

Upex Pies products have proven to be so popular the owners have had to shut up shop in order to recruit more staff.

“We are gutted to announce that the Upex shop will be closed again. We tried our best to cope with the demand, but it was really an uphill struggle with the number of staff that we have,” a post on its Facebook page reads.

Upex Pies were sold across Middlesbrough for almost 100 years, before the family business closed its last outlet in North Ormesby in 1998.

The revival is the brainchild of Middlesbrough entrepreneur Steve Davies and his business partner Wayne Spriggs, whose great-grandfather was the brother of Upex Pies’ founder.

• Since this story was published, local paper Gazette Live reported Upex Pies had reopened on 4 January, selling all its 1,400 pies in a record-breaking day.  More: bit.ly/1ZbovLE

8 RECRUITER

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Find more daily news stories at recruiter.co.uk/news 14/01/2016 14:24

T H U, 7 J A N 2 0 1 6

Leeds United on lookout for new head of recruitment itment Football club Leeds United’s head of player recruitment itment Martyn Glover is poised to move to rival club Sunderland. nderland.

A spokesperson for Sunderland told Recruiter the move had not yet taken aken place. ocess of However, a Leeds spokesperson confirmed the appointment is in the process d reunite going through, subject to sorting out contractual issues. The move would Glover with former colleague Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce who worked with Glover when they were both at West Ham United FC.  More: http://bit.ly/1ZpDxxF

31

DAYS

←‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒‒• J A N U A R Y

FRI, 8 JAN 2016

MCLAREN TO RECRUIT 250 TO DUE TO GROWING GLOBAL DEMAND British luxury car manufacturer McLaren Automotive is to create 250 jobs to help it

MON, 4 JAN 2016

TUE, 5 JAN 2016

NEW YEAR’S HONOURS FOR THOSE IN RECRUITMENT WORLD

WEST MIDLANDS POLICE RECRUITS FRAUDSTER TO COMBAT CYBERCRIME

Directors at recruitment firms, a diversity consultancy and contractor accountancy and payroll firm have been recognised in the 2016’s New Year’s Honours list.

Morson chief executive Gerard Mason and Equal Approach chairman Ian Thornley were made an officer of the order of the British Empire (OBE).

Helen and Damian Broughton, co-founders of Danbro, and Joëlle Warren, Warren Partner’s founder and executive chair, were made members of the order of the British Empire (MBE).  More: http://bit. ly/1JHmQX5

West Midlands Police has recruited top fraudster Tony Sales to help teach officers about cybercrime, according to the Birmingham Mail.

Sales, who reportedly stole £30m using hacked personal data, is to give a keynote speech at the force’s annual business summit later this month.

Since serving prison time for his fraud offence, he has been working with banking, retail and insurance organisations to help protect their online systems.

He told the Mail: “Only if you see the world through the eyes of a criminal can you anticipate their next move.”

 More: http://bit.ly/1TS2dI6

 More: http://bit.ly/1ZY3lgU

250

I M AG E S | PA / S A M K ESTEV EN / SH UTTER STO C K

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cope with global demand.

The company announced the “immediate recruitment” of 250 skilled production, quality and logistics team members to work at its Surrey production centre.

Driving demand for the new recruits was the release of five new car models and the opening of 12 new retailers last year.

The company said it was a result of “unprecedented levels of forward orders” for cars. It is hoped the workforce boost will support the production of 20 cars per day from the middle of this year, six more than the current rate.

The news comes at a time when UK new car sales hit an all-time record last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), with around 2.63m new vehicles registered in 2015, up about 6% on 2014.

NEW JOBS

BY FASTCAR MAKER MCLAREN WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 9

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£3m

NE WS

CONTRACTS

IS THE VALUE OF DATUM RPO’S CONTRACT WITH CONSTRUCTION AND ENGINEERING FIRM BRITANNIA

CONTRACT & DEALS

51job Chinese job board and HR services provider 51job has formed an education partnership with the Association of Talent Development. The partnership will see both organisations leverage each other’s strengths to provide education courses, workshops and certificate programmes to talent development professionals in China.

Berry Recruitment St Albans-based Berry Recruitment Group has acquired Londonbased office support staff recruiter Amanda Smith Recruitment for an undisclosed sum.

Founder Smith remains with the business, working alongside Berry’s existing management team.

Air Energi Global workforce solutions provider Air Energi has won a deal to supply contract personnel for Qatar Petroleum’s Bul Hanine project, an offshore redevelopment project off Qatar’s East coast. The fiveyear deal, with a twoyear extension option, will see Air Energi source experienced candidates across a range of disciplines, including engineering, construction, health & safety, environment and quality.

CorTech Atlanta, US-based global staffing firm CorTech has bought Virginia-based Partnership Staffing.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Partnership Staffing will keep its brand and operate as Partnership Staffing, a CorTech company.

Its chief executive Bill Auchmoody and staff will remain with the merged operations.

Auchmoody leads the Virginia region for the combined business.

DEAL OF THE MONTH

Nicholas Associates Group South Yorkshire-headquartered talent management group Nicholas Associates has acquired Ashley Kate HR, a specialist HR recruitment company, for an undisclosed sum.

Nicholas Associates Group chief executive Lisa Gainsford said the acquisition is an “essential step in diversifying our group into HR recruitment”.

Ashley Kate HR staff remain in post except one of its former owners, Hilary Scanlon, who has moved on. The other owner, Naomi Asher, is staying on and will work alongside the overall management team. The Ashley Kate HR brand will remain.

Datum RPO Recruitment process outsourcing provider Datum RPO has won a £3m, threeyear contract with specialist construction and civil engineering firm Britannia.

The deal will see Datum managing Britannia’s suppliers of permanent and temporary resource on a vendor neutral basis.

Harvey Nash International professional recruiter Harvey Nash has sold its loss-making German telecoms outsourcing business Nash Technologies to that business’s chief executive Udo Nadolski for €27.6k (£19.9k). The business was identified as non-core during a strategic review last year, and in September this year, following the merger of its largest client, the firm reported the business was loss making.

Impellam Impellam Group has agreed to acquire US-headquartered global staffing group Bartech for an initial US$120m (£80m). This includes $4.6m in Impellam shares. Dependent on performance, a further $6m cash will be paid by April 2018. Bartech’s chief executive David Barfield joins the Impellam Group as CEO of its North American businesses.

Mike Bixler, Impellam’s North America managing director for specialist staffing, becomes MD of the enlarged specialist staffing business and reports into David Barfield.

QS Recruitment A management buyout of Nottinghambased QS Recruitment has been completed.

The deal was led by sales director and managing director Peter Gillespie.

He has become a shareholder in the business, alongside former senior branch manager Brian Smith and payroll and accounts manager Kevin Gray. The new management team has been joined by new chairman Alan Dickinson, a former MD of Michael Page UK, and Tony Daly, a business consultant, who takes on the role of finance director.

The firm’s former MD David Bridge retired from the business.

SP O NSO RE D BY

N° 1 QUALITY 10 RECRUITER

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FEBRUARY 2016

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TRE NDS

INSIGHT

KEEPING UP WITH 2016’S RECRUITING TRENDS What could be more important in a fast-moving world than keeping up with developing trends? Unfortunately, many recruiters are so busy that they fail to follow or act on these important emerging trends DR JOHN SULLIVAN TOP 12 RECRUITING TRENDS THAT WILL DOMINATE IN 2016

TREND #12 ANONYMOUS CV SCREENING AND BLIND INTERVIEWING Why awareness is critical As an increasingly more scientific approach to diversity recruiting emerges, more recruiting leaders have recognised the significant unconscious biases many hiring managers and interviewers have.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Irrelevant information on CVs can lead to bias. Background information that has not been proven to be valid predictors of new hire success can be removed or obscured from CVs presented to hiring managers. Firms like Deloitte and Google are experimenting with this practice. ● Visual biases during the interview can be reduced with more telephone interviews. Another approach is to literally hide the candidates behind a screen. ● Voice biases can be reduced by offering written or online questionnaire interviews in which candidates type their answers to the questions on a computer screen.

TREND #11 FINDING TALENT WILL BECOME EASIER BUT SELLING TO TALENT, MORE DIFFICULT Why awareness is critical Thanks to the internet, it is now possible to find 12 RECRUITER

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almost anyone who is qualified to do a job. Now the most difficult phase of recruiting will become the ‘selling’ aspects. To succeed, recruiters must develop stronger selling skills in terms of convincing prospects to apply, to come to multiple interviews and to accept your offers.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Assess the sales skills of your recruiters. ● Survey a sample of recruiting targets

to specifically identify how and where they look for a job, and what factors must be present before they will apply for and accept a job. ● Survey all new hires during onboarding and ask them specifically what arguments or sales approaches were effective and which had no impact.

2,000 employees participated. ● With the widespread availability

of smart phones, recruiters and hiring managers can now make personalised recruiting videos to send to high-value candidates. ● Video job descriptions and even video job offers can have a profound impact on selling candidates. ● ‘How-to’ videos posted on YouTube on technical topics have proven to be a great attraction tool. ● Placing actual recruitment ads on TV has been recently popularised in the US by GE, Walmart and Koch. The Coors beer company offered a compelling TV ad that linked fun work and producing a great product. The ad included these lines: “When you love your job, you never work a day in your life’’ and “When beer is your calling, you never clock out”.

TREND #10 TREND #9 VIDEO WILL BECOME PROMINENT IN IMPROVING THE SELLING CAPABILITY ALL RECRUITING MESSAGING

OF YOUR JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Why awareness is critical The high

Why awareness is critical Many

impact of videos will see their usage continue to increase. Videos are often best to reveal the excitement and the passion found at your firm — especially if shot by employees on their mobile phones, as they are likely to be seen as more authentic and believable.

candidates who were initially interested will turn away after reading dull and poorly written job descriptions.

Misleading job descriptions can also lead to new hire turnover when the job described is completely different than the job discovered on the first day.

BEST PR AC TICES

BEST PR AC TICES

● Deloitte’s ‘film festival’ offered its

● Test your firm’s job descriptions

employees a chance to shoot short videos from their mobiles, revealing the fun inside the company. More than

against those at competitive firms.

Simply conduct a blind side-by-side test (where the job descriptions have no IM AGE | AKIN FALOPE

14/01/2016 15:21

company name on them), then ask a sample of people in the field to rank the most exciting job descriptions for similar jobs. ● Survey potential applicants to develop a list of the words and phrases that would excite them about this job. ● Video job descriptions involving the team reveal much more excitement than any written job description can. ● Change the ratio of the words used so that the percentage tilts towards the persuasive aspects of the job description. ● To find diverse candidates, consider an approach tried by Google. Allow a team of your own diverse employees to rewrite the job description, to make it friendlier to your target diversity group.

TREND #8 FOCUSING ON RECRUITING INNOVATORS Why awareness is critical The most innovative firms like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon produce a significantly higher workforce productivity ratio (ie revenue per employee) than average businesses.

This is because they focus on hiring innovators, who produce at least 10 times more than the average worker in the same job.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Referrals are the best way to identify

and recruit additional innovators. ● Online resources now make it amazingly easy to find the ideas and the work of innovators. ● Put together a process for identifying innovators within the large volumes of CVs or LinkedIn profiles. ● Don’t lose innovators during the early stages of interviewing because of their

tendency to appear arrogant or abrupt.

Train recruiters and managers to not instantly reject because of individuals. ● Innovators also expect different things before they will accept a new job such as job customisation and freedom to take risks and to try new things.

TREND #7 A FORWARD-LOOKING APPROACH TO RECRUITING Why is awareness critical Unfortunately, 100% of all current recruiting metrics are historical and look backward.

Shifting to a future-focused approach allows organisations time to prepare and to mitigate potential damages.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Workforce planning helps you prepare

for the future by knowing what types and amounts of talent your firm will need to meet business needs.. ● Forecasting possible turnover and then alerting your managers before a key employee becomes serious about quitting can improve retention. ● Using predictive metrics allows you to prepare for next year. Firms like Google even predict now which employees are likely to quit because they “feel underused”.

TREND #6 CALCULATING THE HUGE COSTS RESULTING FROM A BAD CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

of a poor candidate experience, including lost sales, where 9% of candidates would tell others not to purchase products from the company. A reduced volume of applications may result, and at least 10% of the disgruntled will post negative social media comments about your hiring process, which discourages more from applying.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Survey a sample of past applicants

and new hires to identify what they didn’t like or what frustrated them about your hiring process. ● Consider using your own ‘mystery shoppers’ to go through your hiring process to identify issues. ● Check to see if a ‘soon-to-be interviewed applicant’ is currently a customer. ● Periodically track negative social media comments about your interviews and hiring process on Glassdoor.com and other similar sites, to identify the problems that others see.

TREND #5 ALL RECRUITING APPLICATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS TO BE DELIVERABLE ON MOBILE Why you must track this trend The smart phone has the highest response rate of any communications channel.

It should become the primary way for applying, communicating, providing information to candidates and maintaining candidate relationships.

Why awareness is critical Recently,

BEST PR AC TICES

HR solutions provider CareerBuilder identified some unexpected consequences

● Offering the capability to complete a

job application from any mobile platform ▶

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TRE NDS

INSIGHT on your corporate careers site will prevent your application drop-off rate from skyrocketing. ● Make it possible for candidates to accept your offers directly on their mobile phone. ● Use the most responsive channel for communications, which currently is often texting ● Mobile makes it possible to hold live video interviews from anywhere. This can reduce scheduling delays and the time to hire significantly. ● All internal recruiting applications and web pages should be mobile phone accessible for all managers and recruiters. ● Employees must be able to do all of their referral tasks on the mobile phone. ● Eligible candidates should be able to self-schedule their own interviews.

TREND #4 INCREASING NEW HIRE QUALITY AND CORPORATE REVENUE BY INCREASING SPEED OF HIRE Why you must track this trend Unfortunately, most top applicants will drop out of the hiring process within 10 days, as the best are likely to receive other offers and won’t wait around.

Recognise that if a vacant position is a revenue-generating role, corporate revenue will be unnecessarily lost if a slow hiring decision keeps the position vacant for too many days.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Measure the correlation between

hiring speed and new hire quality, to show that slow hiring reduces the quality of your eventual hire. Most people mistakenly assume that the longer you take to make a decision, the better the quality of the hire will be. ● Prioritise the recruiting effort for jobs and candidates that require speed to land the best candidates. ● Identify unnecessary delays and show those causing the delays the negative impact they have on the quality of hire. ● Widely distribute a ranked list of the managers with the slowest hiring speed, to increase internal competition or even to embarrass them. ● For key revenue positions, work with the chief operating officer to identify the revenue lost each day that the position is vacant.

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TREND #3 USING QUALITY OF HIRE DATA TO IDENTIFY WHAT WORKS AND TO HELP QUANTIFY THE IMPACT ON BUSINESS Why you must track this trend Measure on-the-job performance of new hires, and put them in high performing and below average performing groups. Then identify the traits the individuals in the top-performing group have in common.

Knowing what attracted the top and the worst performing new hires will help you refine branding and sourcing processes.

BEST PR AC TICES

● Identify which sources, selection criteria, recruiters and hiring managers are best for accurately identifying new hires that will exceed average performance. ● Measure the percentage of improvement in output from your new hires that work in already quantified jobs like sales and customer service. ● In non-quantified jobs, multiply the improved performance percentage of new hires by the firm’s average revenue per employee. ● Calculate the percentage of your hires that are weak hires, and then estimate the cost of each one. ● Work closely with the chief financial officer’s office to add credibility to your data.

TREND #2 REFERRALS WILL BECOME 50% OF ALL HIRING… SO YOU BETTER GET THEM RIGHT Why you must track this trend With the best firms getting nearly 50% of their hires from employee referrals, it’s critical to invest time and resources into maximising the quality of hire from your referral programme. Unfortunately, corporate referral programmes are not self-managing, so must be continually benchmarked, updated and improved.

● Be highly responsive to each submitted referral to maintain high employee participation levels. ● Give feedback to your employees on their weak referrals, so that individual employees can improve. ● The best single way to improve referral quality is to require your employees to know the individual’s work and skills. ● Celebrate and publicly recognise employees that make superstar referrals.

And finally…

TREND #1 – SHIFTING TO DATA-BASED DECISIONMAKING IN RECRUITING Why you must track this trend Lately, we have become quite good at collecting metrics in recruiting.

Unfortunately, after collecting them, we seldom use them to make decisions or to force change. Data-based decision-making has been adopted by every business function — except HR. Compared to the normal intuitive decision, data-based decisions can be at least 25% better. Google is leading the way in shifting to a data-based model by declaring that “We want to bring the same level of rigour to people decisions that we do to engineering decisions”.

DATA CAN REVEAL:

● Words and phrases in your branding

and recruiting information that successfully attract quality applicants. ● Types of interviews and interview questions that, when answered correctly, best identify future top performers. ● Whether your candidates’ references are accurate predictors of future on-thejob performance. ● Your new hire failure rate (which can average 46%). ● Which recruiters and hiring managers routinely produce the highest quality hires, and which do not. ● Which single factor has the highest impact on hiring success.

FINAL THOUGHTS

BEST PR AC TICES

● Educate employees on how to make

good connections and referrals with an educational referral toolkit. Provide sample social media profiles, advice on how to build relationships and how employees should effectively assess potential referrals.

Failing to prepare for any of these trends dooms the recruiting leader to a life of ‘catch up’ and unpleasant surprises. What worked in the past no longer produces even average results in the ever-changing world of business and recruiting. ●

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C

INTE R AC TIO N

AGENCY VIEW

A leap of faith Adopting unlimited holidays S A M A N T H A M A X W E L L- R E E D

n 2013 we took a brave step and adopted flexible working. The first week, when desks were empty at 9.30am and some people left at 4pm, it felt alien. We feared we had made a massive mistake.

However, the business performance since has been remarkable. Flexible working has revolutionised how we do our jobs. So, if working 9 to 5 no longer applies, then why should we have a limiting annual leave policy? Now it’s time for the next leap of faith — with the introduction of unlimited holidays.

Our health and well-being programme is under constant review, and from our annual employee survey, we understood work/life balance and time off were key to people. So unlimited paid time off is the next step in providing a culture that fosters success and trust within the expand team. We announced this initiative just the first week of January.

How did it come about? One of our staff took a month’s unpaid leave in 2015 for an extended holiday. This meant he had 35 days of leave plus all the bank holidays. He worked hard before and after, appreciating the opportunity. He still hit annual target. Once we saw that, expand’s partners voted to launch it.

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+ SAMANTHA MAXWELL-REED is senior partner at expand executive search

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Faith comes from our values of Collaboration, Success, Integrity, Commitment and Ambition, which will ensure we remain focused to deliver exceptional recruitment services to clients.

However, we want to offer colleagues the freedom to make a responsible choice that allows them a great work/life balance outside of this.

Flexibility does not translate to a lack of accountability. We are confident that high performance is so ingrained in expand’s culture that we can trust the team to act responsibly.

We aim to keep it as policy-free as we can, but some guidelines are required. Paid time off, or PTO, will need to be requested 10 days in advance and will need to be agreed by each team director, to stop everyone being off at once. The only other rule is that they have only one period of 10 consecutive working days off in each calendar month; they could have other shorter periods off in a month.

Netflix has offered unlimited holiday since 2004 and while with 22 employees we are an SME [small-to-medium-sized enterprise], we similarly believe that our people programme and culture are intrinsic to the achievement of our ambitious business objectives.

Our results speak for themselves. In 2015 expand achieved 36% organic growth, delivering innovative services that created real value to clients internationally. This year will be equally exciting as expand opens an office in San Francisco.

Maybe it’s time for an upgrade in our mantra of “Good people make great business”. The truth is, “Happy people make fantastic business”. ●

IM AGE | ISTOCK

14/01/2016 08:18

T WEET I N T E R AC T I O N

SOUNDBITES WEB CH AT

UPSET THE RECRUITING APPLE CART! In response to your article ‘Recfluence aims to turn recruitment’s reputation around’ (30 November 2015) — great idea!

Separate out the bad apples from the good. AND, make sure you also have a section on the site where recruiters can post about irresponsible and unprofessional candidates’ behaviour throughout an interview process with their clients.

If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, just reach out to top recruiters and ask for their top three stories on their wall of shame!

ROB DEROSA

IT TAKES TWO TO TRIP UP ON THE TANGO What has been going on at Sports Direct has meant many of its staff have essentially been treated in an approach that would be more at home in a Dickensian workhouse (‘Sports Direct reviews relationship with staffing’ [18 December 2015]).

This is another sad example of the recruitment industry having its reputation sullied by the actions of a small minority.

Deciding who the small minority is — Sports Direct or the recruitment agencies — is pointless. It takes two to tango and this tango has damaged our industry.

The moral of this story is if recruitment is ever to be treated as a professional service it needs to learn to say no to clients who want to push working practices that many members of the public would call dubious.

“What do you really want to do in 2016?”

GILES HAMPSON D IREC TOR — H EA LT H CA RE, RMG ( RECRUI T MEN T MA N AG E M E N T G RO U P)

“The UK employment outlook is looking particularly strong for Q1 2016 with an unprecedented 7% increase in employment expected — I see RMG harnessing this growth and supporting our clients with their aspirations. We operate in the healthcare market, where there are severe skills shortages. As a newly appointed director I will lead RMG in ‘meeting the unmet needs’ in our space. Finally, as an ambitious company, RMG also has growth expectations, therefore we will be making new hires of our own over the course of 2016.”

ANDREA LAKOS P EOP L E A N D CULT URE MA N AG ER AT CS MA CL UB

“2016 will be a very busy and exciting year for us as we are in the process of completely re-branding our organisation.

This includes redefining our brand name, brand strategy and proposition, which requires us to effectively internally communicate and embed the new culture and values.

As this is a huge change that will affect everyone in the business, our aim is to make the transition as smooth and involving at all levels within the company. We believe that brand and culture go hand in hand and our role here is to bring the two together in a way that supports everything we do in terms of our people, behaviours, communication and work environment.”

JO S E PH H E N RY, W E S T M I N S T E R SEARCH

BETSY WILLIAMSON

WHAT SKILL SHORTAGES? In response to ‘Construction recruiters call for greater role in finding missing skills’, I’ve been bricklaying for nearly 34 years. Why is it when the rate of housebuilding slows there’s a ‘skill shortage’? I have worked for a small builder for past 16 years, building house extensions. There’s thousands upon thousands of small builders around the UK who also need our skills not just the big boys and I can honestly say everywhere you go someone is having an extension built. So who is building these? The fairies? No skills shortages whatsoever.

MA N AG IN G D I REC TOR , CORE-A S S ET CON S ULT I N G

“2016 may well turn out to be a pivotal year in the fortunes of many companies across the financial services industry. I therefore want Core-Asset Consulting to be at the heart of helping our clients achieve their ambitions, whether they are at home or overseas. In particular, gender diversity will no doubt continue to be an important issue throughout 2016, and all recruitment partners need to work hard in supporting this initiative.”

KEITH BRYDEN

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Steve Weston | Group Technology Director | Hays

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One world. One future.

Bond International Software www.bondinternationalsoftware.com

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12/01/2016 14:32

John Atkinson Head of commercial business Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance

I

COMPILED BY

SPONSORED BY

t’s been a positive but challenging year for recruitment firms. In a general election year, the potential of a new government left some companies adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach, which had a direct impact on recruitment. The expected upturn in the jobs market following the general election didn’t quite come to fruition and more uncertainty followed around the possibility of a ‘Brexit’. Yet the UK economy is proving still to be one of the most prosperous economies.

It is within this environment that we recently surveyed over 100 managing directors and business owners of temporary recruitment agencies, and the positive news is that they feel the sector as a whole is growing. Recruiters specifically witnessed an increase in demand for candidates in the retail, manufacturing, healthcare and logistics & construction sectors.

However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges. Managing cashflow will always be a test for the temporary recruitment agencies, as their candidates expect to be paid on a weekly or daily basis. Getting back office processes and systems right can also be a challenge, with over three quarters (78%) of recruiters agreeing that establishing a client base is one of the biggest challenges when starting up a business and is essentially why most fail.

The fact that the businesses within this supplement find themselves on the Recruiter FAST 50 list shows that they have equipped themselves with a strong candidate pool, effective cashflow management and efficient back office support, and can now plan ahead to continue to grow quickly and enjoy success.

We’re looking forward to supporting the next generation of recruitment firms and helping some of the most exciting businesses in the sector to grow. Congratulations once again to those that have made the Recruiter FAST 50 list and we wish you a bright and successful 2016.

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RE CRUITE R FAST 50 20 16

Organic growth continues to be the overarching theme for constituents of this year’s FAST 50 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

2015 ranking

3 1 7

12

2

13 9

31

11 18

43

16 5

23

34

46

30

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Company

Sectors

BIE Executive MSI Group Service Care Solutions GatenbySanderson People Source Consulting Swan Staff Recruitment Hallam Medical Transline Group AM2PM Recruitment Solutions Clement May Liquid Personnel Gravitas Recruitment Group Spencer Ogden Networking People (UK) Piers Meadows Recruitment Worldwide Recruitment Solutions Industria Personnel Services Concept Recruitment Group TeacherActive Navartis Sanctuary Personnel CPS Group (UK) Linsco Newcross Healthcare Solutions ID Medical Group NRL Group Austin Fraser Phaidon Holdings Montash William Alexander Recruitment Morgan Law Partners Nurse Plus and Carer Plus (UK) Oil Consultants Premier People Recruitment Frontier International (UK) Kin-Tec Holdings Encore Personnel Services One Call Recruitment Pro-Force HR Essentials Danny Sullivan Group nGAGE Specialist Recruitment Recruitment Investment Group Prestige Recruitment Specialists Sheffield Haworth La Fosse Associates MTrec Premier Group Recruitment Allen Lane Holdings G2V Recruitment Group

Multi-sector Healthcare Healthcare, construction, legal Public sector IT Multi-sector Healthcare Industrial, technical Industrial Multi-sector Social workers Insurance, energy, IT Energy, engineering IT Healthcare Energy, engineering Engineering Multi-sector Education Technical Healthcare IT Engineering Healthcare Healthcare Energy, engineering Engineering, IT, life sciences Multi-sector IT IT Multi-sector Healthcare Energy Technical Energy Technical Industrial, engineering Industrial Agriculture & horticulture Multi-sector Engineering Multi-sector Healthcare Multi-sector Finance IT Industrial, technical IT, engineering, media Public sector IT, engineering, energy

Revenue (£000s) 19,887 55,000 25,612 36,906 28,456 19,002 20,352 178,571 38,365 30,212 52,847 14,593 76,794 23,150 16,111 31,832 21,210 31,210 18,193 24,185 86,147 10,300 20,880 45,440 123,916 172,838 29,234 29,335 27,696 13,401 32,594 35,502 33,602 15,160 21,063 76,525 45,150 12,879 16,647 13,799 76,986 252,451 50,174 24,546 20,193 32,514 24,916 18,928 46,252 52,531

Compound annual growth rate (%) 88.8 65.8 63.0 62.9 61.6 59.7 59.3 58.8 58.0 56.0 55.4 54.8 54.3 52.0 51.5 49.7 49.7 49.2 48.2 47.6 44.3 43.5 41.4 41.0 40.8 40.3 40.1 39.5 38.9 38.2 38.0 37.1 36.7 35.3 35.2 34.2 32.2 32.0 31.8 31.3 30.0 29.3 29.2 29.1 28.4 28.4 28.2 27.9 27.6 26.3

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SPONSORED BY

Key shareholders

Website

Headquarters*

Financial year-end

Barclays Ventures Nicky Simpson Richard Freye Primary Capital Jason Baker Stephen Rogers Scott Davies Colin Beasley Pamela Everitt Richard Ward Alexander Elliott, Jonathan Coxon Jonathan Ellerbeck Peter Ogden, David Spencer-Percival Chris Cooke Piers Meadows Mark Brown, Luana Brown Mike Walker Christopher Cass, Elizabeth Cass Simon Ryder, Jason Uppal James Sloan James Rook Jason Grandin, Spencer Symmons Jeffrey Elliott Stephen Pattrick Mo Sacoor, Mike Sacoor, Deenu Patel Andrew Redmayne Derek Simpson, Peter Hart Adam Buck Andrew Larholt William Larcombe David Morgan Sovereign Capital Geoff Lennox, Richard Fielding Aleksei Kern Mark Clarke, Paul Radcliffe Neil McCarthy Louise Latham, Sarah Hockey Andrew Chittock, Sharon Chittock Matthew Jarrett Gary Wilson Daniel O’Sullivan Graphite Capital Management Peter Paul Flaherty Nigel Stabler Timothy Sheffield Simon La Fosse, Linda La Fosse David Musgrave, Robin Armstrong Andrew Peter Woosnam Ben Lane, James Allen James Gorfin

www.bie-executive.com www.msigroupltd.com www.servicecare.org.uk www.gatenbysanderson.com www.peoplesource.co.uk www.swanstaff.co.uk www.hallammedical.com www.transline.co.uk www.am2pm.uk.com www.clementmay.com www.liquidpersonnel.com www.gravitasrecruitmentgroup.com www.spencer-ogden.com www.groupnp.com www.piersmeadows.co.uk www.worldwide-rs.com www.industria-jobs.co.uk www.conceptrecruitment.com www.teacheractive.com www.navartis.co.uk www.sanctuarypersonnel.com www.cpsgroupuk.com www.linsco.com www.newcrosshealthcare.com www.id-medical.com www.nrl.co.uk www.austinfraser.com www.phaidoninternational.com www.montash.com www.william-alexander.com www.morgan-law.com www.nurseplusuk.com www.oc99.com www.ppronline.co.uk www.frontierinternational.co www.kin-tec.com www.encorepersonnel.co.uk www.onecallrecruitment.co.uk www.pro-force.co.uk www.essentialrecruitment.co.uk www.dannysullivan.co.uk www.ngagerecruitment.com www.rigl.co.uk www.prestige-recruitment.com www.sheffieldhaworth.com www.lafosse.com www.mtrec.co.uk www.premiergroupuk.com www.allenlane.co.uk www.g2vcareers.com

London London Preston, Lancs London Bristol Dartford Sheffield Brighouse, W Yorks Birmingham London Manchester London London London London Altrincham Leicester Leeds Birmingham Doncaster Ipswich Cardiff Nottingham Devon Milton Keynes Carlisle Reading London London Brighton London Canterbury Washington West Drayton Aberdeen Manchester Leicester Peterborough Chartham, Kent Chesterfield London London London Hull London London Newcastle Reading London Bristol

Mar 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2015 Dec 2014 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Apr 2014 Dec 2014 Dec 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2015 Nov 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2014 Mar 2014 Dec 2014 Nov 2014 Jun 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2015 Oct 2014 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Apr 2014 Dec 2014 Dec 2014 Feb 2015 Oct 2014 Dec 2014 Jan 2015 Sep 2014 Mar 2014 Jun 2014 Dec 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Jul 2014 Mar 2015 Dec 2014 Sep 2014 Dec 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2014 Mar 2014 Dec 2014 Mar 2014

* If the head office is not stated, then location closest to registered address used

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AT FULL THROTTLE Recruitment firms are achieving record levels of growth, this year’s Recruiter FAST 50 reveals. Marcus Archer and Mark Maunsell of Clearwater International look at what lies behind the figures f anyone is still in doubt about the state of the UK recruitment sector, the 2016 Recruiter FAST 50 results will provide absolute clarity. Private recruitment firms have delivered unprecedented levels of growth against the backdrop of a favourable economic environment, data compiled by international mergers and acquisitions (M&A) specialist Clearwater International demonstrates.

Constituents of this year’s 2016 FAST 50 grew by an average compound annual growth rate of 44%, up from 36% in 2015 and 34% in 2014. The figures emphasise how recruitment firms are achieving pre-recession growth rates. They also support data recently produced by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) that suggests that 75% of recruiters grew during 2014.

As with previous years, multi-sector specialists came out on top. Led by BIE Executive, a leading interim management and executive search firm, multi-sector recruiters occupied 18% of this year’s FAST 50. However, this figure was somewhat down from the 30% in 2015 and 36% in 2014.

While recruiters with broad exposure to multiple sectors were well positioned to achieve rapid growth as the industry recovered, single-sector recruiters operating in attractive markets are now

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benefiting from a more focused strategy.

Healthcare is a good example of a niche sector with strong underlying market conditions. Despite the recent announcement from the Department of Health of plans to curb agency spend, compliant healthcare recruiters are benefiting from increasing patient numbers, chronic skills shortages and high levels of staff turnover as NHS employees switch to agency work.

This trend is evidenced by the inclusion of nine specialist healthcare recruiters in this year’s FAST 50, with two appearing for the third year in a row. A special mention should go to the inclusion of larger firms Sanctuary Personnel and ID Medical, which managed to fight off several smaller recruiters to rank 21st and 25th respectively. Large recruiters typically struggle to grow at similar rates to smaller companies.

The IT sector again had little representation in the rankings, occupying only six places. While this is attributable largely to the managedservice providers continuing to take marketshare, there is also an increasing level of M&A activity in IT. For example, previous 2014 and 2015 FAST 50 constituent Eurostaff was acquired by Cordant Group in June 2015.

The engineering, industrial and technical sectors are three markets that face severe talent shortages.

Recent statistics from EngineeringUK’s ‘Engineering UK 2015’ report suggest that 19% of firms have difficulties in finding suitable candidates, up from 12% the previous year. Recruiters with extensive talent databases are well positioned to take advantage of these skills gaps and achieve rapid growth. In this year’s FAST 50, a total of 18 firms appeared that had exposure to these end markets.

This year’s FAST 50 is unique not only in that companies are achieving unprecedented levels of growth, but also because the growth is coming from a new breed of progressive recruitment companies, with many appearing in the FAST 50 for the first time. In fact, a total of 33 companies were new entrants this year, beating an historic high of 31 in 2015.

One reason for this trend is the fragmented market and low barriers to entry; another is the increasing number of recruitment agencies that are being launched in the UK each year.

Analysis from contract finance firm Sonovate suggests that the number has been doubling since 2010 to reach 4,083 in 2014, with many of these now being of sufficient scale to be considered for inclusion in the FAST 50.

Unsurprisingly, two of the largest UK-headquartered oil & gas recruiters, Fircroft and Air Energi, were absent from the list in 2016, having been present in 2015 and 2014. The oil & gas

FEBRUARY 2016

14/01/2016 11:32

+ L-r: MARCUS ARCHER and MARK MAUNSELL, compilers of the FAST 50 report from corporate finance house and international M&A specialist Clearwater International

picture continues to be one of struggle, as Brent crude oil prices have fallen 43% in the last 12 months to November, and extensive job cuts have followed.

Further, with the market still in a state of glut, there are no immediate signs of improvement. While the effects have not yet been fully felt by recruiters — with six oil & gas recruiters still appearing in this year’s FAST 50 — it will be interesting to see how this trend develops through 2016.

Organic growth continues to be the

overarching theme for constituents of this year’s FAST 50. This growth, typically, was driven by either expansion of their office networks or diversification into new sectors. BIE Executive, which recently completed a management buy-out from parent company the Cornhill Partnership, has achieved significant growth off the back of opening a London office in January 2014 and the founding of a South African-based subsidiary to better access the growing African market.

METHODOLOGY The Recruiter FAST 50, prepared by Clearwater International, lists the fastest-growing privately owned recruitment companies in the UK, according to a revenue compound annual growth rate over the three most recent annual reporting periods.

CRITERIA FOR INCLUSION: To qualify, companies must be unquoted, registered in the UK and not subsidiaries, although their ultimate holding companies may be based offshore. Companies that are backed by private equity or other financial investors, either minority or majority equity stake, are also considered for inclusion. All companies considered for inclusion must achieve minimum annual sales of £5m in each of their past three financial years.

EXCLUSIONS: Companies that have filed abbreviated accounts at Companies House without disclosing audited sales are excluded from the FAST 50. Companies whose latest available filed accounts are 2013 or before are excluded.

Companies that are not pure-play recruitment companies are also not considered. Recruiters that are co-owned by foreign trade recruitment companies, or where a listed recruitment firm holds a minority stake, are also discounted.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS: Qualifying companies are identified through independent research that uses several financial databases, Companies House information, press coverage and other research sources. Entry submissions are therefore not required, although any firm that believes that it may not be automatically assessed in the 2017 FAST 50 may contact Clearwater International to discuss this. Please email mark.maunsell@ cwicf.com

SPONSORED BY

Others have adopted a different growth path. For example, Spencer Ogden has diversified into the rail, marine and construction sectors — a move that will help to reduce the company’s exposure to the energy markets. A further strategy is to leverage strong balance sheets and deploy capital through engaging in M&A activity. This approach has proven particularly successful for NRL, which purchased Surrey-based Petrolic Consultants in June 2013 and, in doing so, added around £30m of revenue for the group.

Private equity funds continue to play an increasing role in shaping the recruitment landscape, as they look to invest in fast-growing, profitable and often single-sector-focused recruiters.

Consequently, many FAST 50 companies are often considered key acquisition targets for mid-market private equity groups, or already operate under private equity ownership.

To illustrate this point, three of this year’s FAST 50 constituents completed transactions with financial investors.

Both Nurse Plus and nGAGE Specialist Recruitment — previously known as the Human Capital Investment Group — completed secondary buy-outs, while GatenbySanderson secured an investment from Primary Capital.

While the future prospects for the recruitment sector are overwhelmingly positive, the necessity to attract and retain talent is more prevalent than ever and is the most commonly cited growth restraint for recruiters. In a sector that is characterised by high levels of churn, the ability to retain key employees will be an ever-greater differentiator in the future. Also in the distant future is the threat of increasing levels of automation and the use of robots over human capital, which in turn may have a profound effect on the job market. ● WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 23

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TH E B IG STO RY BIE EXECU TIVE

For Rob Walker, chief executive of the No.1-ranked FAST 50 firm, BIE Executive is the latest in a string of high-performing projects. His success is partly down to a competitive spirit but also remembering that recruitment is still all about relationships, he tells Colin Cottell PHOTOGRAPHY PAL

24 RECRUITER

With getting on for three decades in recruitment, Rob Walker, CEO of BIE Executive, has pretty much seen and done everything in the sector. After cofounding accountancy recruiter Walker Hamill in 1989, he went on to launch Imprint with Walker Hamill co-founder Brian Hamill before floating it on AIM, the Alternative Investment Market, in 2001.

HANSEN As an industry veteran, and one with such a track record, Walker might have been forgiven for resting on his considerable laurels. However, this year’s Recruiter FAST 50, compiled by corporate finance firm Clearwater International, which ranks the 50 fastest-growing privately owned staffing companies in the UK, proves that the passing of time has failed to quench Walker’s ambition.

With a compound annual growth rate of 88.8% over the past three years, BIE Executive, a newcomer to the FAST 50, is a clear winner — more than 20 percentage points ahead of the runner-up.

Although Walker is delighted by the news, it is not just BIE’s exalted position as the UK’s fastest-growing staffing company that is contributing to his high spirits. As he speaks to Recruiter from a tiny interview room in BIE’s City of

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14/01/2016 08:18

SPONSORED BY

“I am as passionate and enthusiastic as I ever was”

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14/01/2016 08:19

TH E B IG STO RY ROB WALKER

“My belief is that you have to keep evolving the business. You can’t keep doing what you have always done”

London offices, what comes across is his continuing passion for recruitment.

“As a recruiter it is easy to become tired and burn out,” he says. “I am as passionate and enthusiastic as I ever was before, with the team of people we have here and the product we are taking to market.”

Asked to summarise the secret of his success, Walker’s response is telling: “I know it’s a bit of a curse, but never [being] satisfied. We can always do better.

Fundamentally, I am a competitive person as well.”

After a career that has gone through several iterations, Walker shows no signs that his competitive spirit has dimmed.

Indeed, he clearly continues to revel in the battle to stay ahead of the game and 26 RECRUITER

C O M PANY

BIE Executive 1996: Formed as BIE Interim Executive 2012: Merged with Archer Mathieson 2013: Management buyout led by Walker 2014: Advisory practice launched Number of staff: 30 2013 turnover: £15.96m 2013 profit after tax: £590,757 2014 turnover: £19.45m 2014 profit after tax: £1.066m

outwit the competition. “My belief is that you have to keep evolving the business.

You can’t keep doing what you have always done,” he says. And at the core of that, he adds, “you have to look at your clients and the relationship you have with them, and what else you can do with those relationships”.

The latest demonstration of Walker’s consistent ability to evolve and adapt those relationships came in 2014, when BIE launched its management consultancy practice, complementing its existing search and interim management practices.

Fabrice Rodrigue, a former management consultant, was brought in to lead the practice. “I often refer to it as a one-stop shop,” says Rodrigue, describing

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how the consultancy side, typically supplying management consultants for business transformation and change projects, generates opportunities for the other arms of the BIE business. “Interim expertise to backfill functional roles, and permanent staff to fill future gaps in the organisation that result from the business transformation.

“We don’t always have to sell all three to a client; it just ends up that way. Once you do the consultancy services, you end up doing all three,” he says.

“It’s not just about having a transactional conversation but discussing an alternative between the interim side and what management consultancies have to offer, because there is a whole pool of candidates who are ex-consultancy that are a notch above regular contractors,” he adds.

Integrated service Rodrigue believes that adding an advisory service and offering it as part of an integrated offering sets BIE apart from its competitors in what is a congested interim and search market. Having three strings to the company’s bow, is “another reason to go and talk to clients; it is not just another recruitment offering”, adds Walker. “This is an area that we would expect to grow more quickly [than interim or executive search].”

Offering an integrated service is great in theory, but as Walker admits, achieving it is not necessarily easy in recruitment, where recruiters “are used to building their own desk” and not thinking about the bigger picture.

That is precisely why Walker places such emphasis on BIE’s team ethos, something he makes abundantly clear when asked what differentiates the company from its competitors.

“Without coming out with all the old clichés — quality of consultants, integrity and honesty — what does stand out is the team ethos,” he says. The company focuses a lot of its training on crossselling, “helping staff to understand the buying signals for other parts of the business, so they can sell the integrated proposition”, he says.

“For example, if they are part of the finance team they will be listening to their contacts for opportunities for transformation to get Fabrice involved, or maybe an opportunity for supply chain or HR.”

W H O AR E TH E Y? SPONSORED BY

Rob Walker 2013-present: chief executive officer, BIE Executive 2010-13: chief executive officer, the Cornhill Partnership and BIE Executive 2007-10: non-executive chairman, Hexagon

2004-07: various nonexecutive director roles 2000-02: chief operating officer, Imprint 1989-2000: joint managing director, Walker Hamill 1976-87: British Army officer

Fabrice Rodrigue 2014-present: head of BIE’s advisory practice Previously: management consultant, Ernst & Young (now EY), Atos KPMG Consulting, Chaucer Consulting and Accenture

“So it is not just about me; it is what else is going on within this business that I can introduce colleagues to.”

Walker emphasises that operating in this way is not an option, but is integral to the company’s identity and culture. “It’s a ‘must have’, it’s part of the induction, and so when we are interviewing for staff we make it clear that this is actually a benefit to them, that this is how we operate.

“We don’t believe in people working in pure silos. In the majority of meetings, at

least two people won’t be from the same team. It is rare that two people from the same team go along.”

The team ethos is reflected in how the company’s staff are rewarded. “The remuneration is geared to encourage people to go and cross-sell,” he says.

In addition, it’s reflected in the openplan nature of the company’s offices.

Indeed, it is also one of the reasons why the company plans to shut its original office in Windsor, opened in 1996, WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 27

p24_28_recruiter_bigstory.indd 27

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TH E B IG STO RY BIE EXECU TIVE

and concentrate all its resources in London. “We are bringing the whole team together because you hear about opportunities, you talk to other people, and that communication is absolutely key to it,” says Walker.

He describes the Windsor decision as his most difficult to date. “It is not a negative because it is going to make the business stronger, but for the people there it is a disruption.” The challenge is “to make sure it’s seen as a positive move by those people who were based in Windsor”, he adds.

The latest phase in BIE Executive’s story began following a management buy-out led by Walker in 2013, when the firm was part of the Cornhill Partnership. “It was a fantastic opportunity, a good name, a great platform, and some good people I was happy to go into business with and wanted to work beside,” he says.

“I consider myself as the person who defines the strategy and then ensures that we deliver,” he adds. “We have a strong team around me, so I see my job as the glue that holds it all together.” Six of BIE Executive’s senior management team, including Walker and Rodrigue, hold stakes in the business, with private equity firm Barclays Venture holding the rest.

Changing the model The company’s recent growth has been helped by the encouraging trading environment, says Walker. “Anecdotally, in the market it is quite busy — it’s probably back to 2008 pre-recession levels.”

That’s not to say there have been no changes — in particular in how BIE is remunerated. “The old model of ‘a third, a third, a third’ is difficult to achieve on a regular basis,” he says. “You have to be more imaginative around fees. Rather than taking it in three stages you might take two — a retainer fee and then on completion. It’s not unheard for us to do four stages, where the final stage is three months after the person has started.”

He continues: “We try not to move on the quantum or the amount. What we will do is show some flexibility around payment.” He always bases his fees on results, he says. “I have never understood why any client would go on 30-, 60-, 90-day payment whether or not you produced somebody or not.”

28 RECRUITER

SPONSORED BY

“First and foremost, recruitment is all about relationships” Looking back over his career, Walker says the biggest change has been the way the market has become more sophisticated. “In 1988/89, if you met someone at a party, and they liked you, the next day you were doing some work for them, whereas now you have RPOs [recruitment process outsourcing firms], PSLs [preferred supplier lists] and procurement getting involved, and that only happens rarely.”

But despite the barriers between recruiters and clients that have grown up over the years, they can never hide a central truth about recruitment, he says.

“First and foremost — and it is something that has remained from

day one when we set up Walker Hamill — is that recruitment is all about relationships,” he says. “There are people I talk to today I would have got to know 28 years ago, so relationships are the core to all of it.

“I remember times when I have not filled a job and the client has been absolutely delighted with the process,” Walker adds. “I have also seen situations where the job has been successfully filled but the client is particularly unhappy. It is how you deliver that is the key to it.”

When the CEO presiding over the fastest-growing staffing company in the UK makes such a suggestion, perhaps it is time for others to sit up and take notice. ●

FEBRUARY 2016

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Issue 34 February 2016

RECRUITMENT MATTERS The View and The Intelligence

Member of the Month

Scale Up and the EU p2-3

Forces Recruitment

p4

Legal update and the IRP

IRP Awards

IRP Awards Winners p6-7

Photos from the big night

1

the workforce, while simultaneously helping small companies to hire.

Most recently, in November’s Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne announced plans to impose a new apprenticeship levy of 0.5% on company payrolls from April 2015, to ensure that large companies ‘shoulder the cost’ of training workers.

Self-employed and small business owners should keep track of all the public schemes available to them.

Incentivise staff When it comes to staff wages, small companies typically struggle to compete with large corporations, so it is important that SMEs seek other ways to encourage the best candidates. Jobseekers prioritise roles that offer flexible work hours (37%), meaningful work (35%) and a pleasant work environment (32%).

SCALE UP YOUR BUSINESS WITH 2 INDEED Small to medium-sized businesses will need balance staff incentives with growing pressures on bottom lines, according to new research.

The REC’s Scale Up partner job search engine Indeed has published a series of tips for SMEs looking to hire in 2016.

Its UK managing director Bill Richards says small businesses will want to bring on new staff in the New Year to benefit from the good economic climate.

@RECPress RM_FEB_16.indd 1

“2016 is going to be a telling year for a number of self-employed workers and micro-businesses as they look to take on some of their first employees and grow their businesses,” he says.

“This is a crucial stage of building and growing a company – these early employees will establish the success, culture and make-up of the organisation’s future.”

Indeed’s four tips for hiring SMEs:

Plan for the National Living Wage With staff costs rising, SMEs will need to find new ways to maintain profit margins and appeal to talented recruits.

Embracing remote and flexible workers can be a successful strategy for businesses that lack the funds to maintain a physical office presence, or have the flexibility to operate outside of the standard 9–5 working hours.

3

Apprenticeships are vital The government announced a number of apprenticeship schemes to support young people to get into

p8

4

Take a multi-channel approach to hiring More than half of job searches through Indeed came via a mobile device.

However, Indeed uncovered that 9% of SMEs currently optimise mobile for recruitment – with many UK SMEs still relying on newspapers and personal contacts as their main means of hiring.

• For recruitment businesses looking to make the most of the New Year, visit www.rec.uk.com/scale-up

www.rec.uk.com 12/01/2016 12:16

Leading the Industry

THE VIEW

What would ‘Brexit’ mean for your business, asks Tom Hadley, REC director of policy and professional services

Can your business grow if your people don’t, asks Kevin Green, REC chief executive

Here we are at the start of 2016 with a great year behind us. We are forecasting the UK recruitment industry to grow by 8.1% this year; the opportunities for REC members are significant. However, we believe the winners will be those businesses that invest in their people.

It’s very clear from our research that the fastest growing recruitment businesses are those that are good at attracting and retaining talent. When I interviewed Adam Buck of Phaidon International last year for our Scale Up podcast he said that one of his core objectives was to grow his business at the same speed as the ambition of his people. What I took this to mean is that he recognised Phaidon needed to provide development opportunities for his key fee earners to avoid them either moving on or setting up on their own. This is a model that we think many recruiters need to replicate.

At the REC we will play our role in supporting recruitment leaders to develop their only key appreciating asset: their staff. We now have over 8,200 members within

2 RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016

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BUILDING A VIEW ON THE EU

the Institute of Recruitment Professionals (IRP), which is dedicated to enhancing the skills of the 100,000 people who work in our profession.

We will soon launch a new online continuous professional development (CPD) tool, which will assess IRP members’ knowledge and help them keep their skills up to date. We will also launch our new Level 5 Diploma in Recruitment Leadership qualification in the first few months of 2016.

We are delighted to say we have 600 young people studying for an apprenticeship in recruitment.

We would love to double this number in 2016, so if you want to attract young people with potential to your business and our profession, then please get in touch.

I am going to be travelling across the UK meeting members, so if you want me to visit your business let me know.

Also, why not follow me on Twitter to keep up to speed with all things recruitment?

In the meantime, here’s to a great 2016!

You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevingreenrec

The debate on the UK’s membership of the EU will be intense and will have huge implications for the UK’s business landscape and for our jobs market. It will also have specific implications for the recruitment industry, which is why we need to do everything we can to understand the potential impact on clients, jobseekers and business.

A core message in our ‘Manifesto for Jobs’ is that enhancing the UK’s position in the global marketplace and unlocking the full benefits of EU membership is important to maintain our highly effective labour market. Essentially, we want a broad repositioning of EU activities around jobs, growth and global competiveness, as well as a specific focus on other practical measures that will enhance the benefits of EU membership such as more effective recognition of qualifications.

One of our other priorities is to ensure that the EU debate includes a specific focus on what outcome is in the best interests of the UK jobs market. The ongoing insight from REC members will have a crucial role to play here. Here are some of the questions we need to be asking ourselves in the run-up to the EU referendum: • If you are currently active in another EU country, what would a ‘Brexit’ mean for your business?

• How would client organisations be likely to respond?

• How can recruiters best engage their staff, clients and governance in the run-up to the referendum?

• What specific EU reforms would make a positive difference?

• What would be the impact if free movement of workers was restricted?

• Would leaving the EU facilitate or hinder access to key skills and talent?

The REC’s overriding aim is to stimulate debate and reflection and to help raise awareness of what the various scenarios might mean for members. It’s going to be quite a year!

You can follow Tom on Twitter @hadleyscomment

www.rec.uk.com

12/01/2016 12:16

74%

THE INTELLIGENCE DIANA BEECH, SENIOR RESEARCHER, ASKS WHAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM THE UK’S PRODUCTIVITY PUZZLE IN 2016 The UK jobs market is in a strong position.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK employment rate is the highest it’s been since comparable records began in 1971 – standing at 73.9%.

The number of jobs vacancies is also at a record high at 747,000, whilst the proportion of people who are economically inactive (21.9%) has not been lower since Q4 1990. Despite these successes, the UK is yet to find a convincing solution to its greatest economic challenge over recent years – namely its

STILL GROWING SLOWING

poor productivity rate.

A nation’s productivity is generally measured by how efficiently it translates labour and capital into goods and services. Historically, UK labour productivity has increased by approximately 2% year-on-year.

However, since the recession it has stagnated to levels which the ONS describes as “unprecedented in the post-war period”. According to the latest figures, Britain’s productivity gap with other G7 advanced economies has widened to its largest since 1991.

Fortunately, 2015 brought some relief to the UK’s productivity problem. The ONS reported that productivity (measured by output per hour) grew by 0.9% from Q1 to Q2. According to a study commissioned by the International Festival for Business (IFB 2016), this marks the start of a dramatic turnaround in the UK’s fortunes, with productivity levels

THE UK EMPLOYMENT RATE IS THE HIGHEST IT’S BEEN SINCE COMPARABLE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1971 – STANDING AT 73.9%

predicted to rise by a total of 10.7% by 2020.

Most notably, the study predicts a much-needed growth of 15.5% in productivity in UK manufacturing – a sector which saw output per hour fall by 0.5% on the quarter in spring 2015, suggesting no end to its exceptionally weak post-crisis productivity trend.

Not everyone is optimistic about progress, however. A recent report by the Resolution Foundation warns that UK productivity needs to rise significantly in the coming year to keep real-term pay growth at its present rate of 2.5%.

If productivity fails to pick up and inflation takes off more than expected, the Foundation fears pay growth could slow to less than 1%, leaving British workers wait-

40 ■ Upper Qtile ■ Median ■ Low Qtile 30

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%

10 0 -10 -20

Oct 13

Nov

Feb 14

May

revenue growth demonstrates the importance of bench marking performance against other recruiters to maximise performance.

The picture for Net

Aug

2% SINCE THE RECESSION IT HAS STAGNATED TO LEVELS WHICH THE ONS DESCRIBES AS “UNPRECEDENTED IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD PRODUCTIVITY LEVELS PREDICTED TO RISE BY 2020

BY A TOTAL OF

10.7% ing even longer to experience the types of pay rises they enjoyed before the crisis.

Raising productivity will undoubtedly be key to sustaining the UK’s economic recovery this year. It is, therefore, important that recruiters, employers and the government work together to solve the productivity puzzle by investing in skills and supporting British workers.

On a more positive note, although RIB member turnover growth is slowing, the profit margin RIB members is earning has rebounded in the last six months, with median temp margin now standing at 16.8%.

Figure 1: Recruiter turnover growth

20

Last month I talked about slowing revenue growth with median RIM recruiter revenue growth slowing to only 1.4% in September (Figure 1). There is a wide variance between different recruiters with a quarter of RIB members seeing revenue growth of over 13% and a much less fortunate quarter seeing revenues FALLING by more than 10% on a year ago.

This extreme divergence in

UK LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY HAS INCREASED BY YEAR-ONYEAR APPROXIMATELY

Nov

Feb

Sep 15

Disposable Revenue is slightly better with median NDR growth of 5%, but a quarter of RIB recruiters are seeing NDR more than 10% LOWER than a year ago.

Chris Ansell is chief financial officer at Recruitment Industry Benchmarking (RIB). The RIB Index provides bespoke confidential reports on industry trends.

See www.ribindex.com; info@ribindex.com: 020 8544 9807. The RIB is a strategic partner of the REC.

RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016 3

12/01/2016 12:16

The BIG talking point

MEMBER OF THE MONTH

A FORCE UNTO ITSELF The stigma surrounding ex-military candidates is waning, but there is still work to do. Forces Recruitment managing director Graham Brown talks about those challenges Recruitment Matters: Why does working with ex-military candidates appeal?

also humble to a fault, which is something we have to coach them on.

Graham Brown: This is the best niche you can have in recruitment. We’ve cracked the golden egg here as far as I’m concerned. The trade skills they’ve got are up to a very high standard and easily equivalent to anything else out there.

RM: What does that involve?

RM: And that comes with a military work ethic too, right?

GB: Absolutely. What these guys bring is a different attitude to most civilians. They have organisation skills, the ability to think on their feet and the ability to work under extreme pressure. They’re

4 RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016

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GB: Some have only had one job outside of the military for up to 20 years. Many reach the age of 40 without having been to a job interview.

They’ve achieved an awful lot of stuff in their military career, so we have to organise these things and get them to sell themselves, because ex-military people aren’t good at that.

towards ex-military. If you played a word association game a few years ago and said “army”, people would use a few colourful adjectives that wouldn’t have been supportive.

More people are starting to see how these people are built to make a difference and add value. I once placed a vehicle technician a few years ago and got a call from a client saying he was going well, but there had been an incident the other night.

down. “I had to fix that part,” he said. The client explained that all he had to do was order a new part. “When you’re in the desert you can’t order anything,” he replied.

The fact he came up with a creative solution speaks to the mind-set. One of the things we sell to client is that many of these guys don’t have a fixed trade, but come with organisational skills and a ‘cando’ attitude, which means a lot to employers.

RM: What happened?

RM: As someone who has served in the military yourself, has that affected the way you run your business?

GB: The client got a report RM: It hasn’t always been this way, has it?

GB: There has been a massive paradigm shift in attitude

about a light on in the garage around 9pm and went to check it out. He came upon the technician in there with the engine of a car stripped

GB: I don’t think you appreciate at the time what the military prepares you for.

www.rec.uk.com

12/01/2016 12:16

values and we work very hard to understand our clients and candidates. In this day and age, in a candidate-driven market, you’ve got to have a very sharp idea of what you’re doing.

[Forces Recruitment] was borne through not wanting to work for someone else.

RM: What makes a good recruiter?

GB: I’d say someone who has a good pair of ears, is flexible and committed. Finding the right fit is absolutely critical.

I think the industry norm has been to shoehorn people into jobs to get a fee. You can’t do that anymore. We’re not built for cutting corners – we have a way for doing certain things at Forces. We like to think ourselves in retail terms as a John Lewis rather than a corner shop.

It made a man of me – I came back from the Gulf War with a very different attitude towards life and a lot of things. When I got home and saw my family, I said: “If I can get past what gh, I can get by I’ve been through, rows at me.” whatever life throws That resilience served me well fe. in commercial life.

RM: How do youu feel about uitment right working in recruitment now?

GB: I don’t thinkk most people enced the will have experienced ondition it is market in the condition cruiters we are right now. As recruiters conditioned to focus on the client, but part of our sixe interview stage candidate ned to process we learned understand our candidates

www.rec.uk.com

RM_FEB_16.indd 5

much better. It’s important to understand your candidates as well as your clients.

RM: Quality above quantity?

GB: Yes. I would rather place 20 people into roles where they grow and develop instead of 40, where half disappear within three-six months. It’s not good recruitment practice.

W We need our clients to come ba back to us and say: “We love th that guy. Go find us another on one.”

RM: How did it all begin?

R GB: I did a search at the time G an and there was nothing around ffor ex-military in terms of recruitment. There were a few headhunters in the city, but nothing that covered the three services and all ranks. When I set the company up, we were the first of our kind. We stayed true to our core

RM: What recruitment process do you go through?

GB: We recruit in six stages and want our people to build their career here. That includes assessments and a three-stage interview process.

If you don’t come through that in very good form and with very good marks, we won’t take you on.

RM: Like the military, standards are important.

GB: Absolutely. Our clients – and particularly our candidates – deserve the best. When it comes to the candidate process you need to understand them properly, otherwise you’re really going to suffer in this industry.

RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016 5

12/01/2016 12:16

Legal update

THE EU: WHAT AFFECT WILL BEING IN OR OUT HAVE ON RECRUITMENT?

Shutterstock

By Lewina Farrell, solicitor and head of professional services at the REC At the time of writing David Cameron is trying to renegotiate the UK’s place in the EU as a precursor to a referendum, which may happen as early as summer 2016. Whenever the referendum happens the question is – what will the outcome mean from a legal perspective?

If we stay in the EU it is probably safe to say it will be business as usual for recruitment businesses in terms of employment legislation. But what if we vote to leave? Firstly there would be exit negotiations and we simply don’t know how long those could take. We are also unable to know at this stage what form of co-operation might exist between a departing UK and those countries remaining in the EU. Separately we have an issue about domestic law, in particular employment law, much of which emanates

6 RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016

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from the EU. Matters such as the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE), the Agency Workers Regulations, Working Time Directive, collective consultation for redundancies legislation and others have become embedded in our employment legislation and working arrangements.

Would these be dismantled or replaced in the event of a vote to leave the EU? Outside of employment legislation the EU has the

lead role in the development of key areas such as data protection legislation and electronic commerce regulations. Even if we did leave the EU, these pieces of legislation might remain on the statute books – particularly if we had arrangements such as those negotiated by Norway, which remains outside the EU but is part of the European Economic Area and therefore required to comply to a large extent with European economic, social and

employment policy.

Of course there is also the thorny issue of migration.

Whilst the political focus is on reducing migration into the UK, in the event of an exit from the EU freedom of movement would be affected both ways. What will happen the hundreds of thousands UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU, whether studying, working or retired? As my colleague Tom Hadley has flagged, the key for our industry is to be asking the right questions so that we can make an informed decision when it comes to the referendum vote.

Other areas such as pensions and tax legislation are outside the remit of the EU and entirely a domestic issues. So we should not anticipate any changes to ITEPA including the agencies legislation (ss44-47), the ITEPA reporting or IR35 based on the outcome of the EU referendum.

www.rec.uk.com

12/01/2016 12:16

Inspiration

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE INSTITUTE OF RECRUITMENT PROFESSIONALS

The View

Claire D’Amelio is the principal SAP consultant at Energize Solutions and winner of Recruiter of the Year at the 2015 IRP Awards.

Brian Wilkinson iss the chief executive of Matchtech e Group and Lifetime Achievement 15 recipient at the 2015 IRP Awards

AWARD WINNER

WHAT I KNOW

What’s it like recruiting for companies in Germany while based in Manchester?

The UK and German markets couldn’t be more different. A lot of the time German clients and candidates take a cautious approach to recruiters. Job boards are rarely used there and a good candidate would never put their CV on one. With me being English, it’s an extra mark against me. But I like being able to prove them wrong and show you don’t have to be a native German to understand their market.

What’s the most important tool in a recruiter’s tool kit?

The telephone. You build your business through the development of relationships. How do you form relationships? By talking to people and meeting with them – you don’t build relationships through a keyboard and a screen. That was true 35 years ago and it will be true in the future.

The line a lot of recruiters use is that they “fell into recruitment” – was that the case with you?

Going into recruitment wasn’t on the horizon at all. I was at uni in Liverpool and studying business, and was one of the unfortunate ones among my friends who had no idea what they wanted to do when they grew up. After graduating, a lot of my friends were moving to London, and yes, that’s where I fell into recruitment.

What about recruitment excites you?

One of the big things people think about recruitment is the money, but honestly, that’s not the main thing that drives me.

One of the things that gets me buzzing is that candidates in Germany are never active – it’s about headhunting and trying to improve candidates’ lives. When I get through to the end of the process with a candidate and they say “Thank you so much, this is the dream job that I didn’t realise I needed before”, it’s very satisfying.

Do your clients appreciate that approach too?

One of my key clients is an automotive engineering company where I’ve placed nine people. A few weeks ago their head of department called me up to ask for updates on recruitment that they can take to their board. It’s the biggest compliment to have that kind of trust held in me.

What position is the industry in this year?

I think we’re in great shape. The industry has professionalised enormously over the past 25 years; we are now seen as a credible partner, a more consultative service to our candidates. We now bring a greater intelligence across the industry that he individual client can see.

What are some of the major challenges facing recruiters?

There will be questions about membership of the EU and what that means for freedom of movement. I think the industry should do whatever we can to encourage the free movement of people and resist populist calls for cutting all immigration. It would be a shame that a political decision was made that would impact on that. The prospect of changes in terms of taxing of self-employed consultants is a threat and something that government need to be careful not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

What piece of advice would you give to someone thinking about starting their own recruitment business?

I would keep my overheads low and stick to a specialist market I knew well and have relationships in. Resist the temptation to open another desk or division in a related market. We are such a fragmented industry that you can build a terrific business that’s focused without being all things to all men.

To keep up to date with everything the Institute of Recruitment Professionals is doing, please visit www.rec-irp.uk.com

www.rec.uk.com

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Events and training

BUSINESS GROWTH

IRP AWARDS 2015

The night’s winners

The stars of the recruitment industry were out in force at the 2015 IRP Awards.

Recruitment Matters takes a look back at the glitz and the glamour

Lifetime achiever Brian Wilkinson

Master of Ceremonies Steph McGovern

The party begins

Recruiter of the Year Claire D’Amelio with REC chief executive Kevin Green

David Smith, REC chairman Simon Noakes, Sarah Gordon, REC CEO Kevin Green, Tony Taylor

RECRUITMENT MATTERS

Membership Department: Membership: 020 7009 2100, Customer Services: 020 7009 2100 Publishers: Redactive Publishing Ltd, 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP. Tel: 020 7880 6200. www.redactive.co.uk Editorial: Editor Michael Oliver michael.oliver@redactive.co.uk. Production Editor: Vanessa Townsend Production: Production Executive: Rachel Young rachel.young@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 6209 Printing: Printed by Precision Colour Printing

The official magazine of The Recruitment & Employment Confederation Dorset House, 1st Floor, 27-45 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NT Tel: 020 7009 2100 www.rec.uk.com

© 2016 Recruitment Matters. Although every effort is made to ensure accuracy, neither REC, Redactive Publishing Ltd nor the authors can accept liability for errors or omissions. Views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the REC or Redactive Publishing Ltd. No responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts or transparencies. No reproduction in whole or part without written permission.

8 RECRUITMENT MATTERS FEBRUARY 2016

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www.rec.uk.com

12/01/2016 12:16

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discover the ultimate in recruitment software REC.02.16.040.indd 40

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A D V E R T I S AEDVME ERTNI STE M EF NET AF ETATU URR EE

www.recruiter.co.uk

THE YEAR AHEAD

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20 16

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ADV E RTISE M E NT FEATU RE

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD LIES AHEAD AMANDA HOBSON is CEO, EasyPay Services Find out more at www. easypayservices.co.uk or tel: 01943 883263

aving started in recruitment when recruitment agencies had to be licensed and self-employed people operated on 714 and SC60 cards (yes, I am that old!), I have seen many legislative changes over the years. Initially we were tackling cash-in-hand payments, but this then brought new loopholes for tax evasion/ tax savings.

Over the years, HMRC has closed many of the available loopholes that allow take-home pay to be increased.

The latest legislation coming into force in April 2016 will ultimately see umbrella models, as we know them, close down, but this has not changed agencies’ view that there will be more loopholes allowing tax avoidance/ savings.

As a back office provider to many recruitment agencies from small to large, £20m turnover ones, I have been listening to the solutions that have been presented to several of my clients. Many are high risk and some mean fundamentally changing either contracts or the way that agencies operate. Suggested agreements between engagers and intermediaries that temporary workers are not subject to the right of supervision, direction and control have implications beyond underpaid tax liability. This is dangerous; what happens in the event of negligence? The client refuses to pay? Yes, there are insurances both held

by PSCs [personal services companies] and currently sold to protect agencies, but we all know that most insurance

H

policies, whether for cars, buildings or travel etc., will always have exclusion clauses in the small print to prevent pay-out when you most need it, and that settlement delays can be a major constraint on cash flow.

It is a huge gamble to change established ways of operation to adopt something untested. One wrong move, wrong contract or wrong arrangement will highlight that, in fact, despite the structure, you are still a recruitment agency and PAYE should apply.

Another suggested solution is pushing workers down the PSC route.

The issue here is that the worker has to show they need a limited company to operate. If a person simply works for agencies all year, why do they need to be a limited company? IR35 comes into question here. Not only that, but PSCs also face a tax change from April, leaving them not much better off than being paid as a PAYE worker.

Whichever route your agency decides to take, it will depend on your attitude to risk. Let’s not forget, draft legislation won’t be finalised until February 2016, so any solutions marketed now

“Now it is time to get down to real recruitment and pay what taxes are due”

could still be blocked by last minute legislation designed to do just this!

Having seen all the changes, I feel that the government may have finally nailed it and wonder if this is such a bad thing? Will it not mean that recruitment agencies’ profitability will now be based on professional service and capability, rather than on tax savings and kickbacks? Will it not make a level playing field for all to operate on?

Will post April 2016 not be a better place to be, once recruiters and workers finally accept that there are no more loopholes and no easy-fixes?

The industry has had a good run of loopholes and now it is time to get down to real recruitment and pay what taxes are due. ●

34 FEBRUARY 2016

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A DV E RT I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

ADAPTING TO MEET THE T&S CHANGES GARY BUTTERWORTH is director, Zeva Find out more at www.zeva. co.uk or tel: 01706 830820

oodbye Travel and Subsistence Expenses, Hello Great Service and Lower Costs!

Earlier this year, HMRC issued a consultation document ‘Employment Intermediaries and Tax Relief for Travel and Subsistence’, which proposed removing tax relief for travel and subsistence for workers engaged through employment intermediaries where they were subjected to supervision, direction or control of any person (or the right of control).

There was, indeed, an air of inevitability that the government would drive through its stated intention to restrict travel and subsistence expenses for agency workers who are subject to supervision, direction and control (SDC).

It was, therefore, unsurprising when the government ignored the valid concerns of the industry (including Members of Parliament and a Member of the House of Lords) to introduce Clause 9 as part of the Finance Bill 2016.

This Clause introduces two new sections (s339A and 688B into ITEPA and a new chapter (Chapter 3B) into Part 4 of the

G

Income Tax (PAYE) Regulations 2003.

Unless the government has an unexpected change of heart (unlikely given its proven track record), with effect from 6 April 2016, the ability for contractors to claim travel and subsistence expenses will depend on clients, agencies and umbrella companies being able to satisfy HMRC that there is no right to supervise, direct and control each agency worker.

It is beyond doubt that in the umbrella sector that there will be casualties. Too late are many umbrella companies reacting to these changes. Zeva and its advisors have been working on possible solutions since the changes were first proposed, making significant changes in systems and processes, to work within the confines of the new legislation.

As a result, New Zeva has adapted to provide a range of services which will meet all the requirements of our clients both old and new. We believe that Zeva holds a unique position in what we perceive to be a fragmented market.

If you wish to maintain your profit margin after 6 April 2016, give us a call now on 01706 830820! ●

“New Zeva has adapted to provide a range of services to meet clients’ requirements” WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 35

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ADV E RTISE M E NT FEATU RE

WRITING IS CLEARLY ON THE WALL BARRY ROBACK is director, Anderson Group Find out more at www. andersongroup.uk.com or tel: 0333 8000 800

What will changes to the dispensation regulations and to travel and subsistence legislation mean for the recruitment industry? ubject to any last minute (minor) amendments, we now have a clear idea of how imminent legislative change will affect the Contingent Labour market.

There should be no doubt that these rules will have a profound effect on the way that the contractor market organises itself and suppliers who suggest otherwise either have their heads very firmly planted in the sand, or worse, will be offering non-compliant solutions to the market.

We should be fairly familiar with what will soon to be the new tests for allowable ‘Travelling and Subsistence’ (T&S) expenses as these are the very same Supervision, Direction or Control (SDC) tests applicable to the Offshore/ Onshore Intermediaries Legislation.

But if changes to the T&S regulations were not bad enough, for those with an appetite for risk and willing to “chance” their assessment of SDC, a far more obscure but profound change in the new Statutory Exemption rules (which will effectively replace Dispensations) will also come into effect April 2016.

You are forgiven if you are not aware of this change as there has been no discussion, consultation or dialogue between HMRC and the contract industry over this impending change.

Without going into detail, the traditional ‘build-up’ approach to a

S

“Those agencies able to re-engineer their businesses now rather than in a few years time will no doubt be ahead of the curve”

36 FEBRUARY 2016

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A DV E RT I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

PAYE salary calculation (i.e. the sacrifice of taxable salary in exchange for a variable amount of tax free expenses) will no longer be accepted by HMRC. After April 2016, all qualifying salary sacrifice arrangements will require that the amount of salary actually sacrificed must be fixed, i.e. not dependant of the variable level of expenses paid.

This means that even if expenses are deemed allowable under new SDC regulations, there simply is no practical way in which an Umbrella can pay these variable allowable expenses to their workers.

So now we appreciate the problem, what is the solution?

We must accept that the UK plc supply chain will be forced into dramatic change in the face of actual and threatened legislative attack. For skilled contractors who are genuinely peripatetic but not be allowed to claim corresponding T&S costs, the new rules are grossly unfair and financially untenable. I very much doubt that contractors will be eager to accept future contracts without a rate increase to compensate for their lost tax free expenses.

After April 2016, Umbrellas will no longer be able to command the same level of margin from contractors where there is no clear tax advantage offered as part of that arrangement.

Umbrellas will therefore become more of an agency outsourced payroll service rather than a contract service offered to contractors. While contractors may still suffer a margin

“I believe it is the traditional agency that will end up suffering the greatest effect of forthcoming legislative change� loss for this new type of service, that margin will be much lower than at present. With lower fee income, Umbrellas will no longer be able to agree generous processing fee arrangements with the agencies that they currently work with.

So with contractors squeezing from one end and hirers resisting rate increases from the other, I believe it is the traditional agency that will end up suffering the greatest effect of forthcoming legislative change.

Traditional Umbrellas will no doubt evolve into glorified payroll bureaux where quantity rather than quality will become the determining factor for their long-term success. But with agencies under unprecedented margin pressure from contractors and without the traditional processing fee income from Umbrellas to help offset overhead costs, agencies will be forced to look at new and innovative ways to remain profitable.

Agencies will need to outsource some, if not all, support functions; such as resourcing, CV verification, time recording, payrolling and everything else in between! If an agency staff employee is NOT a fee earner, the reality is that their support function can probably be delivered more cost effectively and in a more timely manner by others who are better organised to provide such services.

No doubt we will see a proliferation of new and innovative contractor solutions on offer to deal with post April 2016 legislative change. Providing these are totally compliant, cost effective and sensibly workable, they may well provide a welcome short-term fix. But the writing is now clearly on the wall. While my vision of a brave new world may be a little premature, those agencies able to re-engineer their businesses now rather than in a few years time will no doubt be ahead of the curve. â—?

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ADV E RTISE M E NT FEATU RE

LEAVE ENOUGH TIME TO PREPARE LOUISE RAYNER is CEO, NumberMill Find out more at www. numbermill.co.uk or tel: 0333 121 2001

ravel and subsistence legislation was published on 9 December 2015 and will come in to effect April 2016. Louise Rayner, CEO of NumberMill umbrella and accountancy services and a chartered accountant who has held board-level positions at Adecco and Randstad, comments on key points of the legislation.

T

Travel & Subsistence tax relief to be no longer permitted Should a contractor be subject to the right of Supervision Direction & Control (SDC), consider the following: ● Liability – Directors of umbrella companies will become liable for uncollected taxes should tax relief be given where SDC exists ● Fraudulent documents – an umbrella can rely on the existence of SDC, should evidence be provided by an agency of SDC assessment and contractual arrangement. Provision of fraudulent documentation will be punishable ● IR35 – the rules around personal service companies with regard to IR35 remain unchanged, though it is muted that SDC could be overlaid in the future

What does it mean to the agency supply chain? ● Increased cost – The benefit derived

by T&S for the worker may reduce their take home pay. This may then make umbrella less attractive and cause the worker to switch to PAYE, adding Employers National Insurance to the agency’s pay bill. Furthermore

agencies will have increased employment liability and pension cost.

The impact on cost in the supply chain will be significant as margins will be unable to absorb it ● Flexible worker shortage – Being an agency worker may become less attractive, causing fewer to take on flexible work

Potential swing to Personal Service Companies (PSC): What actions are being taken? ● SDC Contracts – Many agencies are looking to establish non-SDC contracts and assessments throughout the entire supply chain ● Uplifts – Many agencies are reviewing uplift levels and looking to negotiate lower umbrella margins to make the umbrella without expenses still viable

“Do not leave it too late – there are answers but don’t leave it until April 2016!”

● Re-emergence of self-employed models and outsourcing arrangements. ● PSC – Advising workers to seek advice from professionally qualified accountants to see if they can operate compliantly

How to protect the supply chain? ● Commercial – Be aware that the playing field is likely to be more un-level than ever before ● Finance officer liability – Remember that wherever you are in the supply chain you have a duty and are personally liable to ensure that taxes are collected ● Analysis – Ensure that you analyse your workers and margins carefully in order to make the right decisions ● Chartered Accountants and IR35 – Make sure that if your workers use PSC models that they engage professionally qualified experts ● Managed Service Company legislation – Make sure that you have checked that your use of PSC contractors doesn’t create an MSC as this will move the liability to you in the supply chain

Do not under-estimate the time to prepare ● There are answers but don’t leave it too late! – Analysis and decisions need to be made, expert advice should be sought and triangulated • Systems, contracts and processes may need changing • Communications, clients, contractors and consultants need educating DON’T LEAVE IT UNTIL APRIL 2016! ●

38 FEBRUARY 2016

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14/01/2016 15:38

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E CAREERS CO M M UNITY

Happy candidate hunting!

Supercharge your sourcing techniques

BY TARA LESCOTT

↗

SO THE GREAT NEWS is that 2016 has got off to a flying start.

By all reports, recruiters across the UK are managing record breaking levels of vacancies, with huge potential to make placements, but it continues to be a candidate-short market.

So what to do?

Too many recruiters are plugging away at futile database searches with weak sales messages or simply tapping out LinkedIn Inmails all day long while hoping that a great candidate will apply to one of their job adverts. It can be a souldestroying and boring cycle of work that fails to produce many TARA LESCOTT is managing director quality candidates. The ‘holy grail’ is the so-called ‘passive’ of rec-to-rec agency candidate.

Recruiter Republic I’m not a believer of traditional distinction between active and passive candidates (I happen to think all candidates can be made active if the right opportunity is presented to them). What I am talking about is the candidate that isn’t already applying for jobs but is very “placeable”. The candidate that will value your service, can work with you exclusively and you can place with one of your clients.

These candidates aren’t looking for jobs online; they’re unlikely to respond to a weak LinkedIn message and they’re probably not on your database — so how do you go about finding them?

It starts with immersing yourself in their space, understanding the things that are important to them, being where they are and having a credible voice. If you are around the people you can place and have their trust, then they will be receptive to your suggestions and you are much more likely to be trusted with a potential career search. Here are my top tips for achieving this:

➊ BE PRESENT Find out where your candidates spend their time — whether it is a physical or virtual location you have to be where they are. Forums, groups, pubs, professional membership groups, industry events ➋ LISTEN What are your candidates talking about?

What are they most passionate about?

What are the key issues affecting them right now?

➌ HAVE AN OPINION If you’re going to join a debate — or even start one — you have to have a voice of authority. Know your stuff before you comment.

Subscribe to relevant news feeds, read blogs, watch discussion groups for commentary ➍ SHARE Whether it’s a quote, a news item, a relevant fun post or a free tool, share things that

will interest your candidates, and either share your opinion or ask for theirs ➎ FOLLOW UP When people do interact with you, follow up.

Whether that’s connecting online, giving someone a call, making a suggestion or recommendation — do it ➏ CREATE AN EVENT Once people know and trust you and you have

credibility, create an event that you can invite your audience to — it can be online or in person. If you make it relevant, people will attend ➐ BE UPFRONT Let people know what you do and how you can help them, make relevant suggestions, ask for referrals, gain commitment to talk when the time is right

If you do these things, week in and week out, where else would your candidates go?

Beats canvassing a list of old phone numbers, doesn’t it? And when your candidates do come to you, they come to you recognising you as an expert they can trust — hallelujah!

Happy candidate hunting! ● 40 RECRUITER

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RECRUITMENT JOB ACTIVITY ANALYSIS of data on Recruiter Jobs, Recruiter magazine’s job board, reveals peaks and troughs in advertising over the course of last year, while the number of recruitment jobseekers remained relatively flat.

JOB DATA IN 2015

The data shows mid-February to mid-March as the period where demand for staff was highest, averaging a 21.6% increase on the number of jobs advertised at the beginning of the year.

It peaked on 9 March, a 48% increase on the beginning of the year. The average number of jobs advertised over the full year was up 2% on 2014.

Other peaks were recorded in late April to early May and the first half of June.

When it came to jobseekers, the year began and ended in a trough, though by mid-January the number of jobseekers had increased 181.3% and remained around the same level until late November when numbers began to dwindle.

181.3% Over the course of 2015, recruitment consultant remained the most popular role in terms of jobs advertised (66.2% of all jobs advertised) and applications (53.2%).

And within the UK, South-East England was the most popular area, accounting for most jobs advertised (19.6%) and applications (18.11%).

FEBRUARY 2016

14/01/2016 11:34

CO M M U N I T Y

CAREERS Find your next move in recruitment on jobs.recruiter. co.uk

E

Starting up an in-house recruiting operation Where do the opportunities lie?

BY ANDREW MOUNTNEY

↗ ANDREW MOUNTNEY is founding partner at in-house recruitment specialist Aspen In-House

21.6%

Construction

INCREASE ON JOBS ADVERTISED AT YEAR START

18.11% APPLICATIONS IN SOUTH-EAST

M

19.6% JOBS ADVERTISED IN SOUTH-EAST

SOUTH EAST

p48-49_recruiter_careers.indd 49

ONE OF THE most common conversations we have with recruiters at any career stage involves their wish to get stuck into something new: to set up a recruitment function.

As in-house recruiting has evolved you may think these opportunities are rarer — but they are still there. I’m going to look at where we’re most likely to see them.

A guiding principle of building any in-house function in a larger organisation is sustainability.

However great the spend on hiring in one year, it takes a long-term outlook to build a modern inhouse function, requiring ongoing investment. While many sectors see such functions as the norm, others have not needed them.

Construction is seeing a return to longer-term expectations for growth. At the same time, the sector has an ageing qualified workforce, together with low pay reviews internally against significant jumps when moving elsewhere. These factors mean that most organisations in the sector see hiring as a priority for the first time in years — creating an opportunity for industry leaders to build sustainable functions.

The challenge, in a historically conservative sector, is building the internal case.

SMEs — particularly digital firms The barrier to entry for internal recruiting has dropped. A typical client for Aspen outside established functions is a business of around 200 people expecting to hire for

20% growth and 10% attrition — low-volume, but enough for the leadership structure to notice pain financially and within day-to-day operations. These roles are often what operational recruiters from larger firms want — standalone, with autonomy to implement what they feel is right but for which they do not currently have responsibility.

These roles are different in other ways, too. There may be no HR relationship, with the role reporting to a chief operating officer instead. This set-up can be an opportunity to influence, but others find it exposed and unsupportive. Such roles encourage entrepreneurialism, and work well for people who are comfortable dealing with ambiguity.

In addition to recruiting, you may find onboarding, training and employer branding thrown your way. These roles can come to market with a pre-defined salary and scope — lots of responsibility for not much money.

Start-ups Work with start-ups involves taking a company on a journey, typically getting bags of responsibility from day one, with little definition of the role. It is similar to the SME role, but with greater risk. Working in this area can allow the recruitment professional to build a portfolio career: being a go-to person for start-ups, supporting more than one firm at a time, and building variety into your work if you are willing to freelance or contract.

If you want to get your teeth into something new, and are prepared for associated risk, 2016 will still give you opportunities to lead. ● WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 41

14/01/2016 11:34

COMING SOON THE RISK FREE EMPLOYED INCOME MODEL TO FIND OUT MORE Billy Thurlow billy.thurlow@racsgroup.com

Fully compliant product unaffected by:

Adam Jordan

• New Travel & Subsistence Legislation

Lewis Scane

• Agency Workers Regulations (AWR)

lewis.scane@racsgroup.com

adam.jordan@racsgroup.com

• Pensions & Auto-enrolment • Managed Service Company (MSC Rules) & IR35 Legislation • No Employer Liability

Head Office RACS Group House, Three Horseshoes Walk, Warminster, Wiltshire. BA12 9BT.

REC.02.16.050.indd 50

VISIT OUR

STAND

D15

3rd & 4th February 2016 Olympia - London

0845 604 0571 info@racsgroup.com racsgroup.com

12/01/2016 17:12

CO M M U N I T Y

CAREERS

E

“My earliest dream job was to be a soldier” MY BRILLIANT RECRUITMENT CAREER op sh e e off ays n c A lw he g is a al w iewin ide er v int

What was your earliest dream job? My earliest dream job was to be a soldier, to serve my country. y.

So at 16 that’s what I did and joined 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers.

↗

What was your first job in n recruitment and how did d you come into it? My firstt ent was with h role in recruitment ere the 2M Financiall Group, wh where al I recruited sales and financi nancial ally went fo or a advisers. I originally for ’s role myse elf but financial adviser’s myself ew they wan nted after the interview wanted ger me to be part of their manager m. It may recruitment team. have helped me that the n exchairman was an d the Royal Marine and or was managing director in my sister unit in the forces.

MATTHEW MOREHEAD, branch operations manager, Berry Recruitment

Alas

ick!

Yor poor

What’s your top job to fill at the moment? A care finance director for a large domiciliary care company in the West Midlands.

ove What do you love ur most about your current role? Itt gives me

Laugh or cry, what did your most memorable candidate make you want to do and why? Laugh: I once

ld and push the ability to build ished agency an already established ffordshire] in Cannock [Staff ordshire] and m to position gives the freedom nt as the number mber Berry Recruitment one recruiter in Cannock.

What is your can’t do without office tool besides your phone?

ou consider to What would you rilliant moment be the most brilliant of your career?? I’m lucky to ber of great have had a number m being made moments — from the operations manager with 2M to o a war torn situation parachuting into — but my most defining moment was when Lichfield City Recruitment (my own business) was voted the top new recruitment agency in Staffordshire 2012.

I M AG E S | A K I N FA LO P E / G ETTY / ISTO C K

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Matthew Morehead

My iPad. My whole life runs through it.

Do you prefer a staycation or holiday abroad? Holiday abroad, anywhere around the Greek islands.

Outside the office, where would you like to interview a candidate or be interviewed? A coffee shop. A nice relaxed atmosphere is always ideal when interviewing.

set up interviews for a new consultant and a presentation was required… I wasn’t expecting a full costume and a rendition of ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well’ [from Shakespeare’s Hamlet].

Surprised wasn’t the word.

What’s the best or worst interview question you’ve ever heard?

Worst: If you were an animal on a farm, what animal would you be and why?

Make us an offer we can’t refuse If you’re looking for a first-class service with the finest candidates and a dedicated 24-hour service, why would you want to go anywhere else? ● WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK 43

14/01/2016 08:24

2014 - 35TH

2015

Officially the highest ranking recruiter in The Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250

Continued sales growth across the entire business: O Perm and temp billings at Pertemps branch level O Niche recruitment services provided by Network Group companies O Corporate solutions offering courtesy of Pertemps Managed Solutions O Further expansion on the horizon for 2016 fuelled by selective acquisition and organic growth Thank you to all of our valued clients and loyal workers across the UK for your continued support

Directors Michelle White, Steve Mogano and Celia Perry of Pertemps Network Group

Head OfďŹ ce: Meriden Hall, Main Road, Meriden Warwickshire CV7 7PT Telephone: 01676 525 000 www.pertemps.co.uk

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12/01/2016 14:44

CO M M U N I T Y

EMPLOYABILITY

ON YOUR MARKS, GET START SARAH MARQUET

R

etail chain Marks & Spencer’s (M&S’s) employability programme — Marks & Start — has seen its first Maltese graduates, after expanding to Malta late last year.

Working with charity partners such as The Prince’s Trust, M&S has put over 13,000 people who face barriers to work through training since it began 11 years ago.

Sophie Brooks, who manages the programme, told Recruiter that when the Trust announced it was expanding internationally, including Malta, M&S saw it as an opportunity to help fulfil its own aim to expand the programme to all of its 59 overseas locations.

The charity partners are responsible for both finding the people in need of help and giving them preprogramme training for periods ranging from three days to six weeks.

Participants then progress to the two-to-four week M&S in-store programme where they are partnered with a ‘buddy’, who shows them the ins and outs of retail work, as well as a career coach. In Malta this is run through the Supermarkets 1960 franchise.

Brooks says in Malta, because of the relationship with the Trust, focus is put on young unemployed people. And while training varies, people typically need help with confidence, communication skills, teamwork, leadership, how to write a CV, interview skills, “and all those things that will set them up for success”, she explained.

After graduating, trainees can progress into a formal staff role without going through the usual assessment process, thus further eliminating barriers they face in obtaining work. But if they are not quite right for a retail role, they are given help to find other employment, training, education or voluntary opportunities.

Prince’s Trust International chief executive Alan Kennedy told Recruiter the main barriers to employment

E

faced by young people both in the UK and Malta are “linked to a lack of confidence and soft skills”.

“Many employers in Malta have also told us they are faced with young people who are not trained in the sector specific skills they need to succeed,” he added.

Last year, M&S also launched small-scale employability programmes in France, Greece and Poland, but without charity partners. In 2007, it started offering the programme with some of its clothing suppliers in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

The programme is a direct result of a customer survey over a decade ago which asked which groups of people the company should help support into work.

In addition to The Prince’s Trust, which works with people aged 16-25, M&S partners with Remploy, which helps people with disabilities; Gingerbread, which helps lone parents; and Business in the Community, which helps homeless people and those at risk of homelessness.

Because of the relationship with the Trust in Malta, focus is put on young unemployed people

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E BUSINESS ADVICE CO M M UNITY

HOW TO MAKE 2016 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER If you have set yourself New Year’s resolutions, why not set your business some too? The holiday period often provides a lull in recruitment for many sectors, offering an excellent opportunity to assess where your business is now and what you need to change to make 2016 your best year ever.

The reason so many personal resolutions fail is because we aren’t committed enough to them to think them through. You cannot afford to be so relaxed if your business is going to thrive, so if 2016 is going to be your best year ever, then take yourself through a three-step process: ➊ Question everything about your business — do a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats] analysis: what are the strengths and weaknesses of the business? What are its opportunities and threats? ➋ Analyse and measure — get evidence to support your ideas about what to change and then set the business achievable and measurable targets. ➌ Act — make sure you have a plan in place with timeframes and targets. Then implement it.

All three steps are equally important. Action is pointless if you aren’t doing the right things, while great ideas and plans are useless if they are never delivered upon. However good your instincts may be, don’t

Alex Arnot The SME Coach ignore the analysis and measurement, as they will give you the confidence you are doing the right thing and help you stay disciplined if your initial enthusiasm wanes.

Top tip: If you know something is wrong with your business, don’t wait — change it now.

F IVE VERY DIFFERENT APPROACHE S TO M AKI NG TH E M O ST O F 20 16

2

3 4

Identify high-growth sectors and clients, and focus on them: it is easier to grow in a growing market than a shrinking one. If you have a core area of expertise, can you leverage it to take advantage of a high growth sector?

Analyse more: don’t just keep ploughing forward.

Examine what does and doesn’t work about the business. What are the key things stifling your growth and your profitability?

Are your costs too high?

Should you be generating higher revenues and/or better margins? Analyse the value of clients, the performance of job boards/marketing spend, financial performance, consultants’ performance etc.

Leverage your database of candidates until all consultants are almost at capacity: most recruitment companies have a database of candidates and of clients. Few consultancies use these goldmines to anything near their potential, preferring to waste money they don’t need to on job boards, LinkedIn and cold calling... to generate candidates, many of whom were already on their system.

46 RECRUITER

Nurture candidates you don’t place: most candidates either know people in the sector they are applying for jobs in, or they will do once they acquire relevant experience. That means even if they aren’t directly relevant to you today, at some point they will start overlapping with your candidates and clients.

Continue to engage with candidates you don’t place even after they have found a role and at some point they will become a source of business for you.

5 Keep your best people and hire well: few recruitment businesses beyond LinkedIn have a business model that isn’t largely dependent on its people.

Your best people give you the margins to invest in the next generation of great consultants. Hire well, invest in your key people, and the business will thrive.

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1

ALEX ARNOT is a non-executive director to 18 fastgrowth companies

FEBRUARY 2016

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14/01/2016 12:03

W W W. R E C RU I T E R .CO.U K

View the latest jobs at www.recruiter.co.uk To place your advertisement E: emmanuel.nettey@redactive.co.uk or T: 020 7880 6234

RECRUITMENT

E

Chase R2R Placing Recruiters At Chase R2R, we place recruitment staff into roles across sector, throughout the UK. Roles available UK wide: Manager – IT Recruitment, London £50-70K, Route to Directorship Senior Consultant – Commercial, Leeds £30-40K

Senior Consultant – Education, UK wide: £30-50K Leading bonus scheme

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Recruitment Consultant, Birmingham £20-28K Construction, 30% commission

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Consultant Birmingham / Swansea, £18-35K, Commission is 30%

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13/01/2016 12:07

E CAREERS CO M M UNITY

5 1 JOB: The China-based integrated HR services provider has elected directors David K Chao, Li-Lan Cheng, Eric He, Kazumasa Watanabe and Rick Yan. A MR OP : The global executive search partnership has appointed as partners: Murat Ayberk and Gregor Handler in Vienna, Austria; Damian Kozjak in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Tamal Kumar in Mumbai, India; Ricky Lam in Hong Kong; Diana Rake in Lima, Peru; Olivier Reynaud in Paris, France; and Jenny Wang in Shanghai, China.

the senior recruitment, search & selection specialist’s move into the estates and facilities market.

BOE I N G: The aerospace company has appointed Heidi Capozzi as HR leader, succeeding Tony Parasida.

BUI L DI N G RE SEARCH E STABL I SHMENT: The organisation has hired Sarah Gibbs as group HR director.

Adecco Group has appointed Shanthi Flynn as chief HR officer and member of the executive committee. She will take up her position in the group’s headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, on 1 March.

Flynn joins from Walmart Asia, where she was senior vice president of HR for the past five years, based in Hong Kong.

Mark De Smedt, member of the executive committee since 2014 and current chief HR officer, will become regional head of Northern Europe on 1 January and will continue in this dual function until Flynn joins in March.

CARDI F F CAP ITAL REGION TRAN S I TI ON BOARD:

ASHURST: Caroline Rawes has been taken on as the law firm’s chief talent officer.

A U D L EY R ETIRE ME N T: Amanda Pearn has taken on the role of HR director at the retirement property firm.

The body, part of a Welsh government advisory board, has appointed Dan Langford, group marketing & communications director of recruitment and training agency Acorn, to the board.

CHARTWE L L STAFFING SOLUTI ON S : The US

A XON R ES O URCI N G: Brian

recruiter has appointed chief executive Leo Camacho to vice chairman.

Johnston joins as new head of estates practice, marking

EASYJET: Jacky Simmonds is

48 RECRUITER

FEBRUARY 2016

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appointed new group people director for the budget airline.

EDINBURGH NAPIER UNIVERSIT Y: Kerry Dewar is the new director of HR & development at the university.

EXIMIUS: The energy, finance and law staffing specialist has a new finance director in the form of Syeda Vazifdar.

ERESPONSE GR O U P : The Midlands-based recruiter has appointed Laura Guymer as manager to oversee its apprenticeship delivery for the region’s employers and trainees.

Email people moves for use online and in print, including a short 14/01/2016 11:38

EU R O C IET T: the European confederation of private employment services, has elected Bettina Schaller, head of global public affairs at Adecco Group, as its vice president.

P SD GROUP: The global executive search firm has appointed Stefan Ciecierski managing director and head of its technology practice.

RE CRUI TMENT MAN AGE M ENT GROUP (RMG): The headhunting, search and selection, and talent acquisition firm has promoted Giles Hampson from business manager, healthcare to director, healthcare.

HEID R IC K & STRUGGL E S :

TML PARTNERS: Charlie

The global executive search firm has new heads of its Los Angeles and Chicago offices in the form of Carlos Garcia (above) and Lyndon Taylor (below) respectively.

Green joins the London-based international senior-level marketing recruitment specialist as partner.

WI LTON & BAIN: The global leadership and advisory boutique recruiter has appointed Paul Reynolds as managing partner within its financial services practice.

WORLDWI DE RECRUITMENT S OLUTI ON S: Andrew Abbey MA N P OW ERGROUP : The global recruitment giant has elected John Ferraro to its board of directors, effective 1 January 2016.

joins the oil & gas, mining, marine and power staffing specialist as a director within its construction and civil engineering division.

YOU R NE X T M OV E

MACILDOWIE: The Midlandsbased recruiter welcomes Ian Machell as operations director.

MATC HTECH GROUP : Lisa Finch joins the international recruiter as senior brand manager for telecommunications.

MD U R ES O URCE S GROUP : The US natural resource company has appointed Anne Jones as vice president of human resources.

NHBC: The new-build home construction standard setting body welcomes Carol Davies as head of human resources.

A selection of vacancies from recruiter.co.uk Fresh Partnership Recruitment consultant Accountancy & finance up to £30k + comm + bens Edinburgh Joseph Harry Graduate rec consultant IT finance £26-30k + bonus + commission City of London Hudson Recruitment resourcer £negotiable Edinburgh

CONTACTS EDITORIAL +44 (0)20 7880 7606 Editor DeeDee Doke

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING +44 (0)20 7880 7607 Tom Culley

deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

tom.culley@recruiter.co.uk

Reporters Sarah Marquet, Graham Simons sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk graham.simons@recruiter.co.uk

Contributing writers Colin Cottell, Sue Weekes Production editor Vanessa Townsend vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk

Creative director Mark Parry Picture editor Akin Falope

PRODUCTION +44 (0)20 7880 6209 Production executive Rachel Young rachel.young@redactive.co.uk

PUBLISHING +44 (0)20 7880 8547 Publishing director Aaron Nicholls aaron.nicholls@redactive.co.uk

ADVERTISING +44 (0)20 7880 7607 Sales manager Tom Culley Senior sales executive Josh Hannagan

RECRUITER AWARDS/ INVESTING IN TALENT AWARDS +44 (0)20 7880 6236 Events Rebecca West

josh.hannagan@recruiter.co.uk

rebecca.west@redactive.co.uk

tom.culley@recruiter.co.uk

CIRCULATION and SUBSCRIPTIONS To receive a regular copy of Recruiter, the leading magazine for recruitment and resourcing professionals, telephone +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email redactive@abacusemedia.com • Recruiter is also available to people who do not meet our terms of control: Annual subscription rate for 12 issues: £29.99 UK; £35 Europe and Rest of the World • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Abacus e-Media T: +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email redactive@abacusemedia.com CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions are invited, but when not accepted will be returned only if accompanied by a fully stamped and addressed envelope. Articles should be emailed. No responsibility can be taken for drawings, photographs or literary contributions during delivery, transmission or in the editor’s hands. © 2016 Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. This publication (and any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet) or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Redactive Media Group.

Redactive Media Group accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. The publishers cannot accept liability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication of any advertisement for any reason whatsoever. ISSN 1475-7478

Total average net circulation between 1 July 2014 & 30 June 2015 – 18,667.

Recruiter is also sent to all REC members

For more jobs, people moves and career advice go to ● recruiter.co.uk/jobs ● inhouserecruiterjobs.co.uk ● internationalrecruiterjobs.com

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Scan here to get your own copy of

14/01/2016 11:38

E THE LAST WORD CO M M UNITY

Matt Churchward Is training really worth the trouble?

Before this question provokes an external backlash and mass exodus from our company, let me explain myself. My fellow board members and I have spent the past two weeks meeting numerous trainers and training providers, as we plan who and what we want to deliver to the business in 2016.

We value training, and invest substantially — both internally and externally — each year. However, we need to strip away all the hyperbole, ask ourselves the following questions and answer them honestly: everything is ➊ When done and dusted, would

the superstars you have worked with over the years have still achieved what they did with no training? those who ➋ Would received training but

did not achieve success within recruitment have left the industry anyway? the answer to both ➌ Ifquestions is “yes”,

then where is the real sweet spot for training?

Clearly, it would be those who would have been lost to the industry had it not been for training. But how do you identify this potential in advance?

50 RECRUITER

What I want to ascertain is where training and coaching are best focused.

We would all agree that everyone should be given the same opportunities and training as each other.

But shouldn’t our industry be more sophisticated in how we approach learning and development? Does a generic graduate training programme really help everyone in an equal way?

Clearly not.

The fact that every recruitment business I have come into contact with has

experimented with modular training, group training, week-long training, hourly coaching and so on only further backs up my point.

Deep down, we really have no clue what we are doing.

Nearly every graduate will ask: “What is your training like?” We will proudly elaborate how ours is industry-leading and bespoke. But where is the data to back up these claims?

Return on investment is hard to evidence in this arena, yet we are happy to

throw money and time at the problem — and this in an industry that is obsessed with figures and facts.

All the training providers that I sat opposite were good in their own way, and I could picture who within our business would benefit best from each approach.

The problem is that there is not a bottomless pit of funding to give everyone their own personal coach.

So we have to come up with the best solution for the greater numbers.

Where does this leave us? We have opted for a combination of group and one-to-one coaching.

However, when I review 2016 in 12 months’ time, will the same conundrum remain? I hope not.

In conclusion: yes, of course, training is worth the investment. The problem comes with where it goes.

It would take some punchy leadership to identify those who you think will succeed only with training, and to then assign them 100% of your training budget.

If someone out there has the answer, then by all means take me to task on my thoughts here. Then patent your solution, and retire in a week’s time as a billionaire.

+ Matt Churchward is director at the Green Recruitment Company

FEBRUARY 2016

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