Recruitment Advice

As we watched companies like Woolworth’s and MFI go into administration before the Christmas holidays, news about struggling retailers is emerging going into 2009. Retailers are waiting for sales figures from the late spenders before Christmas and the sales. Other well known retailers who have joined the casualty list are:

Music giants Zavvi, thousands of jobs are threatened as they go into administration. They have been affected by the collapse of its main supplier Woolworth’s. Some 2500 employees are awaiting news as to whether their jobs are secure.

The tea and coffee specialist Whittard fell into administration this week, they were rescued and sold to a private equity company EIPC. Whittard have 130 stores in the UK employing 1000 staff.

UK childrens wear retailer Adams have also applied for administration, Adams has 260 UK outlets and 130 internationally employing 2000 people.

Retail analysts at insolvency experts Begbies Traynor have claimed up to 15 high street retailers could go under before the end of January.

More and more organisations are now opting for Employee Assistance Programs, to support their staff and increase productivity in the workplace.

Employee Assistance Programs are offered to employees as a benefit, normally in conjunction with a Health Insurance Plan and are intended to help employees deal with problems that could consequently impact their performance, well-being and health.

Having this service is a massive benefit for any company and helps your employees deal with personal and work related issues 24 hours a day. The service can improve business performance by reducing stress and absence, and increasing efficiency and commitment.

An EAP can offer a number of different services including absence management, stress management and a counselling service. The counselling service can also help with problems such as bullying and harassment in the workplace and can be done either over the phone or face to face.

Research has shown that a massive 12.8 million working days were lost to stress, anxiety and depression during 2004-2005.

Offering this service will also give you an advantage in recruiting new staff members, as it will be an additional benefit to other organisations.

Having this service to offer your employees is not only an investment in your people but an investment in your business!

Whilst we are seeing an increase in online recruitment activity, candidates are putting themselves at risk of identity theft.

Those who submit their C.V onto job boards and online recruitment searches when looking for new jobs are putting their personal data at risk.

Most employers have access to job boards and the selling point to the online boards is, that as a employer you can have access to a database of C.V’s. You can go through the C.V’s and pick those you would like to approach for filling your job role. When looking through the data base you have access to whatever the individual has submitted on to the site.

The data you put on your C.V is at risk and can be used by fraudsters across the world. Protecting your personal data is important.

A recent virtual criminology report done by McAfee revealed that at least 120 countries around the world are exploiting the Internet and looking for personal data.

Unemployment rose by 137,000 to 1.87 million between August and October official figures shown today, the highest level since 1997.

This took the  unemployment level to 6%, the office of national statistics said “the people claiming claiming Job Seekers allowance in November rose by 75,700 to 1.07 million, the largest rise since march 2001.

Over the last few days several large UK employers have announced job cuts to start in 2009 as the economic downturn begins to hit hard.

The TUC has predicted that two million people will be out of a job by Christmas and says half a million people will be facing their second Christmas out of work. It is calling for job seekers allowance to be raised from £60.50 to £75.00 per week.

The governmnet is yet to unveil its plans to get the unemployed back into work but a plan to re- train those who have been made redundant to help them learn a new skill is on the agenda.

Once you have been offered the role for your new job, you will then have the difficult conversation of reaching an agreed salary amount. The employer will have a set budget in mind so reading between the lines and reaching the top end of the budget is difficult.

You must:

• Research the market rates before you attend the interview,  research similar roles within the same sector and size of business.

• Know you bottom line, what is the minimum figure you will accept don’t just give one figure, give a pay range. A good way to do this is to look at your current salary and add 10% - 15%.

• Consider the whole package not just the salary, benefits such as holiday pay, sick leave, pension, life insurance and health insurance all lead into the hundreds of pounds on top of your basic salary.

• Try to ask for a early pay review, make sure that before settling on a figure for your salary you ask for a date for when your salary will be reviewed.

• Get all of the above in writing, if your employer agrees all your terms and conditions must request this in writing.

The estimated cost for recruiting the wrong candidate into a role can range between one and three times the individuals salary. This fact alone makes pre-employment screening not only cost effective, but necessary for the financial health of the company.

Education and credential history are exaggerations or lies more than 10 per cent of the time. often candidates can even supply official looking documentation.

C.V’s are an excellent way for candidates to sell themselves, however because there is no set format the quality and accuracy of information is hit and miss.

One solution is to ask all candidates to complete a standardised application form and telling the candidate you will verify all the information given as part of the recruitment process. Ideally the application form should be done by surprise just before the interview is due to take place. It is a excellent tool to measure accuracy against the C.V information.

Unless your are able to check with the Criminal Records Bureau information on convictions is difficult to obtain. Under regulations you can ask for this information on any convictions that are not spent. Checks should not only be made on employment history but on education and professional qualifications.

The more checks you do on previous history the more robust your recruitment process will become.

Because of the recent economic downturn, the engineering sector has started tightening up when it comes to recruiting. For those people that are searching for a graduate role in the industry, they may find that they need to bring a lot more than just a glowing academic record with them to the interview.

According to the Chairman of the Engineering and Technology Board, employers are looking for graduates with a broad skill set, which could be difficult if you have any just come out of University.

“It’s not a criticism of them or of the work the graduates have put in, but they want more in terms of team working, communication skills, project management and entrepreneurship”.

A recent report has shown that applications for engineering courses at Universities have increased by 7% over the past 5 years.

Does this mean that more graduates are applying for courses they they are never going to be able to secure a job in because they haven’t got the experience?

I’m sure this isn’t the only industry that is tightening up when it comes to who they recruit and do you think the graduates are going to find it even harder to get jobs in every sector?

Will recruiters shy away from recruiting immigrants as the new points based system comes into effect?

The system only covers migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEC) and Switzerland. Larger businesses are finding the administration time and cost too much and smaller businesses are shying away. This is because they simply don’t have the spare money during the economic downturn and lack the resources to understand what to do, therefore they are not looking at recruiting workers who need sponsorship.

As a registered sponsor it is the companies responsibility to make sure that the migrant workers comply with their immigration conditions, by keeping records and reporting any changes to the Home Office. The cost to become a sponsor is between £300 and  £1000 for 4 years registration.

Under the new system, migrants will need to pass a points-based assessment before they are given permission to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. The system consists of five tiers. Each tier has different points requirements.

• Tier 1: Highly skilled individuals to contribute to growth and productivity;
• Tier 2: Skilled workers with a job offer to fill gaps in United Kingdom labour force;
• Tier 3: Limited numbers of low skilled workers needed to fill temporary labour shortages;
• Tier 4: Students;
• Tier 5: Youth mobility and temporary workers: people allowed to work in the United Kingdom for a limited period of time to satisfy primarily non-economic objectives

The recent ruling made by the European Court of Justice found that job adverts could lead to direct discrimination.

Whether you are doing your own recruitment or using recruitment consultants, you must be aware of what not to include in the company’s job adverts. Job advertisements can include emails, direct mail, newspapers, online or on the TV.

There are very few UK positions where you can specifically ask for a individual from a particular back ground or community. To make sure your adverts do not fall foul of discrimination law you must avoid:

• Advertisements that include any age limits, unless this can be justified ie serving alcohol. Using words like mature, young and dynamic should not be included.
• Stating a preference on gender,  or gender specific job titles such as handyman or sales girl should be avoided.
• It could be discriminatory to restrict a job advertisement to a specific religious publication, as people from other religious groups or beliefs would be less likely to see the publication.

A lot of people believe that when recruiting, the big boys in the industry will always get the best candidates. This is not always the case and if it were, how would corporate giants like Google and Starbucks Corp be where they are today?

Small businesses are now actually managing to scoop the better candidates whilst sitting right under their competitors noses. They are doing this by keeping business savvy and holding a definable recruitment edge to other organisations.

Here are a few tips to make sure you get the best candidate for the job.

• Work quickly - Everyone knows that the best candidates are hired quickly, so make sure that you find and hire candidates within a small amount of time. Working quickly is generally where the bigger companies lose out. They tend to be slower and clumsier  than smaller companies.
• Prove that your company is stable - Your business may be solid but how does a perspective employee know this? They don’t, so make sure that you promote your company via newspaper articles and business references.
• Generate a benefit package - This is one thing that will attract a candidate to your company. Although you may not be able to afford benefits with whistles and bells on, providing basic benefits such as health care and a generous holiday allowance will suffice and is better than offering them nothing.

Finally, make sure that you create an attractive work setting that reflects the employee’s commitment and professionalism.

If you are a small company or you are setting up a new company but struggling to find candidates, then let me know if this advice has helped.