Recruitment Advice

Europe’s largest recruitment company Hays have reported a loss of 31% in fee income. The recruitment group are specialist is HR, IT and Finance have already announced job cuts this year of 650 and will see a further 250 job cuts over the coming months. The latest round of redundancies will mean that over 27% of the workforce will have been affected.

The Office of National Statistics will reveal next month the number of people that are out of work, this is expected to reach around 3.3 million by the end of 2010 about 10.5 of the UK’s workforce. It is expected that recruitment will stay tough over the coming years.

For most organisations the economic downturn has had an effect on business. This means that for most there has had to be job cuts and budgets have had to be slashed. In most organisations the first budget to be cut is training, as it is seen as a nice to have and not priority.

However i think that if the business is stable during a time when business is slow it should be on a list of priorities to make sure that skills gaps are highlighted and filled for when the business is busier. This is the perfect time to undertake any training courses. Internal training course are cheaper and if they can be carried out by a senior member of the team this can boost morale.

External training programmes like  management courses and training to for staff members will help retain employees and improve employee relations. The courses are designed to help improve management and leadership excellence, it helps to improve the company bottom line and helps managers increase employee performance.

For those who are unemployed attending management training courses will help to fill in the gaps in your employment history and may help you in becoming more employable in a large pool of applicants.

I recently wrote about the lack of information given to employees at the RBS and the conflicting stories of job cuts and pay rises. It was confirmed yesterday that the initial  job cuts will effect 9000 employees,4500 people in the UK.

The troubled bank that is now owned 70% by the tax payer have said the cuts have been prompted by a downturn in business and the need to create a leaner structure. The plan is to recoup costs of £2.5billion over the next three years.

The RBS claimefd that the job losses are more than likely to be lower due to natural turnover, less agency staff and voluntry redundancy.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer has called on the government to urgently put in place a programme of action to protect jobs and said the union would argue for creative solutions to cope during the downturn.

As the new tax year officially begins it would be no great surprise that the Inland Revenue phone lines are going to be busy, however an anonymous employee has come forward and given information that staff are to ignore errors staff to save time and reach call targets.

The whistle-blower added if a customers calls in with a tax inquiry and you spot a mistake on their record you are to ignore it unless they ask you specifically to look at that mistake. If you write to them the post often goes missing, it just disappears, is put into the bin!

She also added half-a-million payment reminder letters were sent out late last week, meaning people were being threatened with surcharges and penalties that they might not even owe

The Inland Revenue have cut 17,000 jobs over the last three years in a efficiency drive. It is reported that the existing staff are worried about how far this is going to go and how worse can it get?

The Royal Bank of Scotland have planned to cut more jobs over the coming months, the reported job cuts are going to effect different parts of the bank across the world.

Sir Philip Hampton the RBS chairman has planned to speak to the shareholders at the banks annual general meeting in Edinburgh. He plans to tell them to expect more job cuts but it is too early to say how many will go and where?

In February the bank announced a reported loss of £24.1 billion for 2008.

Employee Backlash

I wonder how the Managers at RBS are managing there employee relations? I have a couple of friends who have worked for the bank for quite sometime and have enjoyed the financial rewards over the years. However the last 6 months have been very turbulent.

They have been been placed in a pool for redundancy one week and then less than a month later are being offered a substantial pay rise which is much more than the cost of inflation? They think it is a bit of a shambles and they are not sure what they supposed to be expecting next?

When i was planning the company recruitment this year the budget had been reduced with more staff members to recruit.

For all of the recruiting we have done so far this year we have tried to use as many free methods as possible, this includes the Job Centre, industry forums and we have also purchased bargain packages in bulk from Total Jobs and Monster. This has reduced the company recruitment cost down compared to the same time last year.

The other downside to using the free recruitment methods or job sites is that it is difficult to distinguish yourself from your competitors that are using the same methods to recruit. When we negotiated the packages we purchased we made it clear to the provider that we wanted to attract the right candidates and also create brand awareness. We wanted the company logo design on all of the advertisements, this is because the company logo design is easily recognisable as a industry leader and i want this to show in our advertisements.

So far the methods that we have used have been successful and it has made it better to have direct contact with the candidate from the beginiing of the process.

The government have launched a recruitment campaign targeting ethnic minorities and women to help the Fire Service reach new equality targets.

This month the Fire and Rescue Service agreed to targets by 2013 that 15% of all the recruits will be female an increase on 2008 of 9.8%. A report by the Department for Communities and Local Government had revealed that only 5% of the Fire and Rescue service were from a ethnic minority background.

The new campaign is designed to change attitudes and perceptions towards a career with the force - focusing specifically on women and ethnic minority groups - rather than the development of a national recruitment campaign. The exact nature of the campaign is still under discussion but it will run across a range of media platforms, including advertising, online and events.

The Insurance firm Legal and General made announcements last week that it had notified staff that there was going to be more redundancies in the coming months. The firm expects there to be another 650 job cuts following a reported loss of £1.5 billion.

The southern based insurance company have offices in Surrey, Hove, Cardiff and London. They have said the new figures will amount to 10% of its workforce. This includes cuts of 450 job losses that were made last month. 

The Union that is associated with the group have said that the union members are very angry and disappointed with the decisions that have been made, they thought that they had seen the worst of the redundancies last month.

Europe’s biggest bank HSBC are planning on more redundancies of up to 1200 staff in the UK.

The company which has around 58,000 staff members in the UK has said the job cuts will hit backroom areas such as IT and human resources rather than front-line employees in branches.

HSBC said 280 jobs would be axed at the Leamington Spa processing centre, 90 in Newport, South Wales, and 150 in London.

The union Unite who are representing some of the staff members at the bank have said that the original figures that have been suggested are not a true representation and the real figures are nearer 2,900 with 500 jobs moving abroad to India. This statement however has been rejected by the bank.

When you are looking for a new job there are a number of resources you can use to make sure you are looking at a range of employers:

• Recruitment consultants
• Job websites
• Job Centre
• Networking
• Job/Recruitment fairs

Job/recruitment fairs will offer opportunities to meet a variety of employers face-to-face and learn more about them. Meeting with your perspective employer will help you learn about the company history, culture and the employee benefits.

Employers use this sort of event to attract candidates, they want to look more appealing than there competitors, to do this they provide corporate entertainment, invite guest speakers, talk about the company benefits, learning opportunities and career potential.

They also give you the opportunity to:

• Improving your interview skills –Meeting perspective employers, asking interview questions and  getting feedback on your C.V.

• Expanding your network – Meeting job recruiters and even fellow candidates will help you to build a list of useful contacts for future reference.

• Gathering information about companies – Investigating the kind of  placements offered by a company tells you a lot about that organisation as a whole and the culture of the company.

• Learning industry information – Speaking to job recruitment professionals in your chosen sector is a great way to learn about the industry.

When preparing to attend a exhibition you must always take a up to date copy of your C.V, make a list of all the employers that will be attending the fair and make sure you visit all the ones you want to. Manage your day to maximize your chance of getting lots of knowledge and experience.