Local authorities are not doing enough to encourage young people into work, a government minister told council leaders yesterday.
Lord McKenzie, parliamentary under-secretary for communities and local government, said he was "disappointed" that so few local authorities had signed up for the Backing Young Britain scheme, and that the sector was failing to meet apprenticeship targets.
Addressing the Local Government Workforce Leaders conference, McKenzie said there had only been "a handful of local authority sign-ups" to the Backing Young Britain campaign, and urged council leaders to back the programme.
"For young people to flourish, they don't just need jobs, they need careers," said McKenzie. "While we are determined to keep acting from the centre, we can't do this on our own."
According to new figures from the Local Government Agency Workforce Survey, the sector is falling short on apprenticeship numbers. Only 7,000 apprenticeships currently exist in local government, despite a pledge in January of this year to double this number to 15,000. Moreover, 22 per cent of local authorities currently offer no entry level apprenticeship routes, the conference heard.
"The sector is some way off achieving the numbers in its ambition," said McKenzie, "I know you can deliver more apprenticeships but we do need to turn this aspiration into a reality."
McKenzie also asked local authorities to increase their recruitment through the use of Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs). "Although many councils have signed up to LEPs, we are aware recruitment levels are much lower, with only 20 per cent of authorities taking on the long term unemployed," McKenzie said.
"You can harness the opportunities created through the changing workforce to increase recruitment rates and achieve the LGA aspiration of one in four entry level jobs successfully channelled through LEPS," he added.
The peer also called on local authorities to use their influence on local business and suppliers to encourage them to take on interns and apprentices.
Asked from the floor how the push to employ more 16-25 year-olds was compatible with a shrinking workforce and freezes in public sector pay, McKenzie said he realised that the sector was facing "difficult issues" with costs at the moment and that there were tough choices to make.
Launched earlier this year, the Backing Young Britain campaign has recruited 300 businesses across the UK to provide internships, apprenticeships, mentoring and work experience for unemployed 16 to 25 year olds.
The government has outlined plans to modernise job centres to help more people find work in the recession.
The plans involve making better use of technology such as text messaging and the internet to communicate with job seekers.
The changes follow criticism that job centres have not responded well to the rising number of people who have lost their jobs during the downturn.
Latest figures show that 2.46 million people in the UK are unemployed.
The proposals include helping people get online to perform most of their day-to-day job searching using their own personalised web page.
The page would allow job seekers to find jobs specifically suited to them, and allow them to track benefit claims.
The plans also outlined a "technologies budget" to help some people get connected to broadband at home.
Job centre advisers will also be able to send out text messages about new jobs, and reminders about interviews and appointments.
The proposals also outline individual budgets that people can allocate towards various training and development options.
"We've got a service that works pretty well for the people it was designed to help," Employment Minister Jim Knight told the BBC.
"But with almost a doubling in the number of people coming through the door, we've got a much bigger range of people coming in, with different sorts of skills."
Mr Knight said the service was getting more than half of people into work within three months, but that it needed to be "more personalised and more universal".
The plans will be formally outlined in a government White Paper later this month.
If HR is not strategic and business-focused, another part of the business could take over the role, HR directors have been warned.
Answering the question, 'Is the marketing director the new HR director?', Navjot Singh, global marketing manager, recruitment and global communications manager at Shell, explained: "I was asked by my HR director to market our careers in the same way Shell markets lubricants and fuel."
Speaking at the HR Leaders Club at the Hospital Club in London last night, Singh said: "We segmented our recruitment strategy in key markets and had a constructive conversation with some of our most prominent HR leaders. We also focused on our brand."
The company assessed its own recruitment strategy asking applicants to give their own feedback on the recruitment process. And, using marketing techniques, Shell found out the highest number of potential engineering recruits travelled via Aberdeen Airport, so focused job advertising there.
But Singh added: "All members of Shell staff should be recruiters and refer good talent to Shell to keep recruitment costs down."
Since applying the various marketing techniques to the recruitment process, the company has seen an 80% cut in recruitment costs and a 20% reduction in the time to hire new staff.
Looking to the future, Singh believes branding and marketing will have growing importance in recruitment strategy.
"I think in the future companies will have to apply for skilled people to work for them - rather than applicants applying to work at an organisation," he claimed.
But issuing a warning for HR directors, Singh added: "You need to move away from linear to more lateral skills. Use marketing, IT and finance functions to make your own function better. If you are not strategic, the marketing director could end up being the new HR director..."
Government spells out what jobseekers can expect from welfare-to-work providers
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Date: 27/11/2009
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The government has launched a new commitment to participants in welfare-to-work programmes, setting out what jobseekers can expect and what is expected of them in return.
The initiative, called 'Our Shared Promise on Customer Care', includes commitments from providers to:
Listen to customers and provide support based on each customer's circumstances and needs.
Help customers identify and make the most of their strengths.
Make the best use of customers' time, taking account of personal circumstances and by being clear when things need to happen.
In return, jobseekers are asked to take responsibility for preparing for and searching for work, helping providers to understand what is important to them and the help they need and fulfilling their responsibilities under the benefits system.
Leon Edman, PPDG's community engagement manager, says: "Our customers have seen this event as a golden opportunity to meet employers and possibly secure a job or take important steps towards gaining employment. It has been fantastic to see so many come along and show real enthusiasm while talking to employers confidently about what they can offer a company if they were to be recruited."
Mike Moran, director of Everyday Financial Solutions, has already employed several PPDG customers and is hoping to recruit at least another 50 for his brokerage in Birmingham.
Moran says: "An event like this is a great opportunity for me to meet a lot of candidates on one day and to invite the best to discuss employment and training opportunities further. It is great to meet them face-to-face in this environment and to be able to tell them more about my business and what it could do for them."
PPDG works in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and other organisations, to deliver employment and training initiatives including Flexible New Deal, LSC support contracts, Lone Parent mentoring, and learndirect training programmes.
Recruitment figures improve for third month running
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Date: 04/11/2009
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The recruitment market is looking more positive this morning, as the growth of permanent and temporary staff appointments have now reached two-year and 16-month highs respectively.
According to the latest Report on Jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG, October marked the third consecutive month of growth in permanent and temporary appointments and there was a marked rise in job vacancies. And although salaries continued to drop, it was at their slowest pace in 13 months.
But the availability of staff to fill job vacancies continued to increase last month.
Kevin Green, chief executive of the REC, said: "These figures show that the UK jobs market is on the road to recovery, with signs of improvement for the third month in a row. The demand for permanent recruitment is returning as employers start to hire people at an accelerating rate."
"Confidence is on the rise with permanent placements increasing at their fastest rate in two years and growth of temporary staff appointments at a 16-month high."
"Based on the latest findings, we anticipate that unemployment will not reach 3 million in 2010 as some predicted. This again highlights the benefits of the UK's flexible labour market and a balanced attitude towards employment legislation in terms of keeping people in work."
Bernard Brown, partner and head of business services at KPMG, added: "The UK jobs market looks healthier today than at any time in the past two years which is, of course, encouraging news. Sectors like accounting and banking lead the recovery and we may well have reached the tipping point into growth, driven by returning confidence in the private sector. However, we are still to see the impact of the looming public-sector recession on the jobs market, which will play out over the first 12 months of a new parliamentary term."
An incoming Conservative government "will not sign" contracts for the second wave of Labour's flagship programme to provide the unemployed with a modernised welfare-to-work service, says the Tory shadow work and pensions secretary.
The second wave of contracts, covering half the country and hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants, is due to take effect from October next year.
But Theresa May said on Tuesday that a Tory administration would want to replace the flexible new deal with the Conservatives' so-called work programme.
That would take all benefit claimants into one scheme, including people on incapacity benefits and lone parents, rather than just the unemployed adults covered by the FND. It would intervene earlier and, Ms May argues, pay providers more by results and less for simply processing people.
Dave Simmonds, chief executive of Inclusion, the welfare-to-work consultancy, said her apparent threat to tear up contracts that were under negotiation "puts providers in a very difficult position in deciding how much time, energy and money to put in to bidding for something that may not go ahead at the end of the day".
There was a risk, though he judged it a small one, that "large numbers of providers will drop out of the bidding for something that they fear will then be torn up", he said.
While Ms May talks of refusing to sign the deals, she told the annual conference of the Employment Related Services Association , the trade body for welfare-to-work providers, she was taking legal advice on whether it would be necessary to "go back right to the beginning and start the [tendering] process again".
The Conservatives' apparent hope is that they would be able to renegotiate the unsigned contracts, rather than start a new process, which would delay any programme for months. But it may be assisted by the approach the government is taking to the current negotiations.
To the consternation of the providers, the Department for Work and Pensions has shortlisted many companies against each of the 23 contracts on offer. That will add to bid costs, says the ERSA. But departmental insiders acknowledged it might make it easier to renegotiate the deals after a general election.
Keith Faulkner, chairman of Working Links, a big provider, said a flat refusal to sign contracts was not helpful, when what Ms May appeared to be saying "is that she will want to renegotiate. In any negotiation the contracting authority can come back and say, 'things have changed', and sensible organisations can then reach an agreement."
The Tories will still be faced with signed five-year contracts for the first wave of flexible new deal, which has just come into operation. Ms May told the Financial Times she did not plan to scrap those, but "most contracts have review periods and we will be looking at those".
"Earlier this year I had the crazy notion that rather than getting annoyed about the half marathon that goes past my house every year, which requires me to move my car off the road and have limited travel around Coventry, I should say "if I can't beat 'em, I'll join em".
As some of you may be aware, I've done several 5km runs for charity before, but making the leap to 21km is rather a different prospect. My training was progressing really well until I lost 4 weeks of being unable to run due to the dreaded swine flu and it's after effects. Since then it's been a much steeper training curve. Still, I'm feeling confident that I can achieve my goal.
Although my initial motivation was to run for the personal challenge of it, I'd also like to try and raise money for WWF as I've noticed that conservation & animal charities don't tend to get as much support as "people charities" from these types of events. So I thought I'd try and do my bit for the world in general!
WWF's passion is safeguarding the natural world as well as tackling the global threat of climate change. For more info, visit http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do."
The Conservatives have revealed that their new Green Deal to create a low carbon economy will create more than 70,000 skilled jobs.
The shadow energy and climate change secretary, Greg Clark said he hoped 3,500 of the new jobs created through the programme could be 'green apprenticeships'.
Speaking to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Clark said: "Energy efficiency is a triple win for the country. It saves money, it saves energy, and it saves our environment."
"[The Green Deal] will create jobs, fight fuel poverty and cut the country's carbon footprint."
The Conservatives have predicted that their Green Deal proposals could create 36,000 direct jobs in installing and surveying - with a further 42,000 indirect jobs in the energy efficiency supply chain - over the seven-year timeframe allocated to make the required refurbishments.
The implementation of the Agency Workers's Directive will be delayed until December 2011, should the Conservative Party win the next general election.
At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Anne Fairweather, head of public policy at the REC, told Recruiter magazine that shadow minister for corporate governance and business regulation Jonathan Djanogly said the directive would cost British businesses £40bn over the next decade and consequently the Conservatives would campaign against early implementation.
Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, says: "The REC has been calling on the government to delay implementing this directive until the last possible moment in 2011. We are pleased to see the Conservative Party recognises that the cost of getting the implementation of this directive wrong could be huge. It is vital that the labour market recovers before the regulations are implemented. This will also give recruiters and their clients the time to plan how best to ensure that equal treatment after 12 weeks works in practice."
"This is a complex issue and by waiting until December 2011, we can ensure that we minimise the adverse effect of this legislation on jobs."
Determining the correct source of hire: the first step in recruiting excellence
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Date: 21/09/2009
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A fascinating article by Dr John Sullivan on ere.net has today caught our attention. It highlights the issues around not having a system such as web-cruit to automatically track where every application is coming from. The article begins below.
One of the worst-kept secrets in recruiting is that source of hire data is inconsistently gathered and rarely accurate. To many corporate recruiters, the validity of source of hire data is a non issue; after all, once the hire is generated, their role is over.
However, if you view recruiting as a marketing and sales job (as I and many strategic recruiting leaders do), knowing what channels brought the prospect to the organization and what messages led to conversion (talented individual > applicant > candidate > hire) are by far the most critical bits of data the function can collect. Without this information, it's extremely difficult to scientifically budget for sourcing or build strategic sourcing systems capable of impacting organizational performance.
Luckily, however, there is a simple approach that ensures much more accurate and helpful information that doesn't rely on transaction-minded recruiters documenting the source of hire.
If you rely on weak sources, chances are you'll get weak results.
Why Source of Hire Data is Almost Always Wrong
There are numerous reasons why corporate efforts to capture accurate source of hire data are almost always doomed to failure. Some of those reasons include:
Recruiters don't care - not all recruiters are involved in selecting the sourcing tools they will have access to or even using them in general, so coding applicants is an activity that realizes little apparent direct benefit. Even recruiters who do source or play a role in their organizations' sourcing strategy tend to be overconfident that they already know which sources work and don't need data to inform them. Other recruiters are just old-school and will use the same sources over and over no matter what. Unless recruiters are made aware of how identifying source of hire accurately is critical to their success, no one is going to spend a lot of time on capturing it accurately.
Conflict of interest - while some recruiters may care about scientifically validating which sources produce which results, the truth is that capturing data that makes the recruiting function more efficient is seen by some as identifying ways to make line recruiters less necessary.
Not asking in a systematic way - most corporate recruiting processes are relatively flexible and give the recruiter a lot of leeway in determining source of hire. It's rare to find a process that forces recruiters to specifically ask candidates which source most influenced their decision to apply. In other cases, the way the question is posed to candidates is so inconsistent that it dooms the reliability of the answer.
Not segmenting clouds the data - many organizations that do collect source of hire data do so in such a way that the value of the data becomes so diluted it is virtually useless. For instance, can you segment your source of hire data by manager perception of candidate quality (used to validate their assumptions) or by post-hire performance rating? Knowing how top and bottom performers approach the organization is much more valuable than knowing the most common source, or how the average employee is found. Further, knowing how sourcing effectiveness varies by job family or region is essential.
Technology forces bad choices - many corporations use applicant tracking systems to capture the source of hire data at the time of application. Although this is a good concept in theory, studies show that asking prior to hire doesn't always yield the accurate answer, but rather the answer the applicant thinks might result in the best result. When recruiters enter applicants who have come via internal channels or who have been direct sourced, they tend to choose the first source in the drop-down list available. Few systems send validating questions periodically to confirm applicant data downstream, so errors in the front of the process produce bad data at the end of the process.
Forcing a single source - it is common for active candidates to use any and all sources available to apply to an organization, while passive candidates may first be exposed to an opportunity via one channel, but ultimately apply via another. Few data-gathering approaches identify how the opportunity was first encountered, what channels influenced a decision, and what channel ultimately produced the application.
According to a survey of 2,500 FSB members, 34 per cent said they found Jobcentre Plus 'ineffective' or 'very ineffective', while another 49 per cent did not even know if it worked well or not.
With unemployment set to rise to three million by the end of the year, and the number of under-25s on job seekers' allowance having risen by 80 per cent in the past year, it is clear that urgent action is needed.
In another FSB survey, nine per cent of respondents said they planned to take on more staff in the next six months, despite the recession - which would amount to more than 400,000 new jobs. It is well known that small firms are the country's job-creators, with 84 per cent of new jobs across the EU created by small businesses between 2002 and 2007.
A new FSB report, entitled 'The job centre is not working', sets out recommendations for reforming Jobcentre Plus from an organisation that appears focused on processing benefits applications to one that supports work. Fewer than 20 per cent of small businesses said they used Jobcentre Plus to recruit, using instead costly advertising and recruitment services. On the 100 year anniversary of the establishment of the job centre, the FSB proposes the Government:
Establishes links between Jobcentre Plus, Business Link and skills boards, to create a focus on business needs and the skills needed for local employment;
Appoints a dedicated small business manager in each Jobcentre, who understands the specific circumstances and needs of small firms;
Commissions research to examine how funding allocated to unemployment, training and business support initiatives is spent;
Overhauls the Jobcentre Plus website, to make it fit for 21st century online recruitment.
The FSB's report is released ahead of the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative party conferences over the coming weeks, at which the FSB will have a stand in the form of an employment centre, with a focus on small businesses - the country's big employers.
John Wright, National Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses, said: "FSB members feel let down by a service which appears to offer them precious little for the £3.36 billion Jobcentre Plus spends each year. As small businesses are the country's key employers, and are known to give a larger proportion of jobs to those who have previously been unemployed than big businesses, it's time the Government reformed Jobcentre Plus and made it work effectively. The FSB is concerned the lion's share of funding from Jobcentre Plus currently goes to large companies and multinationals, which would still provide training if public funding were not available.
"Small businesses are big employers, and with 57 per cent without employees keen to employ people in the future, they must be given all the support they need to create jobs, and so effectively tackle the problem of rising unemployment head-on."
The labour market is showing signs of recovery, with employers reporting positive hiring intentions for the first time in three years, according to a report out today.
The survey of 2,100 UK employers found that 80 per cent anticipated no change in headcount over the next three months, while 9 per cent intended to increase the numbers in their workforce. This raised the net employment outlook (the balance between reducing staff levels and hiring) to -2 per cent, up from -6 per cent the previous quarter.
The report, by recruitment specialists Manpower, also noted that employers in finance and business services were sending "positive signals" for the first time since the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September last year.
Mark Cahill, managing director of Manpower UK, said: "There are a number of positive hiring indicators emerging, which suggest we may have reached a turning point."
Employers in four out of the nine sectors surveyed reported positive hiring prospects over the next quarter but there was significant regional variation, with employers in the north-east being the most optimistic. Firms in the West Midlands remained the most downbeat, while in London recruitment intentions also declined.
Alan Clarke, UK economist at BNP Paribas, added: "The labour market situation is still weak, but the survey provides tentative signs that we are now headed in a more positive direction."
The Manpower report also found further evidence of the impact of the recession on younger workers, now dubbed a 'lost generation'.
Cahill said employers were using more experienced workers to fill roles traditionally resourced by graduates or first jobbers. He added: "Our advice would be to not underestimate the value that the perceived 'lost generation' can bring through apprenticeships and internships - indeed, there was a war for talent among this demographic only a year ago. However, since then we have seen pressure to cut costs push employers to resource tactically not strategically"
Record UK job applications and steady rise in vacancies
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Date: 01/09/2009
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Kaonix, the UK's leading provider of joined-up online recruitment and talent management solutions, has today released its annual report into the state of the UK recruitment market. The report represents one of the most accurate snapshots of the UK jobs market, being based on actual statistical information compiled from hundreds of customers nationwide.
Overall, the number of jobs advertised in the past 12 months has fallen by 33%.
Each job is being advertised on an average of seven different channels, including companies' own websites and Jobcentre Plus, as well as commercial job boards and, increasingly, social media such as twitter.
The average number of applications per job has more than doubled to 35 compared to last year.
Interestingly however, the number of times each job is re-advertised has fallen slightly, suggesting that with an increase in applications, jobs are being filled more quickly from the first round of advertising.
Commenting on the report, Mark Keane, Product Manager at Kaonix, said, "Whilst the figures make for sobering reading, there is clear evidence of an upturn in recent months. From a low point at the end of the second quarter the number of new jobs being advertised has risen by over 16%." Mark went on to note that "The number of new jobs is set to increase even more dramatically as seasonal recruitment for Christmas begins to kick in over the coming weeks."
Other notable figures show that the average completion rate for online application forms has continued to rise year on year, and now stands at 83%.
The difference in completion rates between direct employer and recruitment agency application forms is notable however. When recruitment agencies are excluded, the completion rate for applications to direct employers stands at 91%.
Mark Keane observed, "This difference would tend to indicate that job seekers show a higher degree of commitment when applying directly to employers."
"In both cases however, Kaonix is pleased to note that our customers' average application form completion rates remain significantly above the industry average."
The cost of unemployment has reached nearly £350bn under Labour, the Tories have said after the Office for National Statistics released the latest figures.
According to the ONS, there are now 3.3m households with no one over the age of 16 who is working. This figure is 240,000 up from last year. There are now 1.9m children living in families where neither parent works. This means that over £100bn is being spent on housing benefit to people without a job, £36.6bn on jobseeker's allowance, £92.5bn on incapacity benefit, £90.7bn on income support and £20.3bn on council tax benefit.
The Conservatives said the figures show that that unemployment didn't somehow disappear during the 'boom years' but that "it was merely disguised, renamed, and hidden away in ever growing pockets of poverty".
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said that 3m people have not had a job since before 1996, and a further 2m people in England and Wales have never had a job at all. She reckoned that far from being a product of the recent recession, the clear majority of the people without work were already on benefits before the recession began.
"These are people that have been hidden away by Labour for the past 10 years", she said. Describing the "steady growth in welfare ghettos", she went on: "Labour's failure to reform our welfare state in the good times has lead to a huge social and economic cost. They have slowly built a wall between the working and the workless, hoping to keep their failures out of sight."
However, the employment minister Jim Knight blamed the figures on the recession and pointed out that the government was "investing an extra £5bn" to help get people back into work.
"The number of children in workless households remains over 200,000 lower than in 1997 as a result of Labour's reforms," he insisted, "but the credit crunch is still affecting families everywhere and that's why programmes such as the £1bn Future Jobs Fund to create 150,000 new jobs are so important."
Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman, commented: "Labour's claims to have tackled worklessness have been exposed as fantasy. The alarming jump in the number of households where no one is working is a sure sign that the recession will have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of families."
Newham Mayor Sir Robin Wales didn't think much of Theresa May's choice of words. "The talk of 'welfare ghettoes' is a cheap shot at vulnerable people who deserve better," he said. "It's the talk of the ignorant, a shorthand for stigmatising and scapegoating. In reality, the figures on employment and worklessness ask complex questions which demand intelligent answers. Here in Newham we don't believe in demonising the unemployed. We want to give them a leg up when they are down, not a kicking."
The volume of vacancies advertised on UK job boards has fallen by 69% in the past 2 years. This is in a market that is abandoning print advertising for digital - The Sunday Times contained only 8 actual job adverts this week. So do we know just how the job boards that we all use, on a daily basis, are faring in the current economic climate? We do know, for example, that the official number of unemployed now stands at 2.4 million, and has increased by 220,000 in the past three months.
When people are losing jobs and not finding new ones, we also know that demand is far outstripping supply. There are of course many firms still recruiting, but not in enough numbers, and not for the skills possessed by many of the newly unemployed. In a healthy job market, brisk circulation is vital; people have the confidence in their ability to move from one job to another, and therefore create a vacancy when they resign. Lack of confidence, fewer new vacancies and low circulation are all part of the same spiral.
So, fewer advertised jobs, and many more candidates, leads to a sequence of events that is very difficult to reverse.
Reports in the UK have surfaced which, if found true, could prove to be a major headache for HR executives and recruiters alike.
According to reports, a British DJ by the name of Steve Miller has claimed he has a medical condition that he defines as being "allergic to the Internet". It may sounds implausible, but Miller isn't alone. In fact, according to one study by British newspaper the Daily Mail, two percent of the population claim to suffer from the condition, which professionals are referring to as "electronmagnetic sensitivity."
It causes sufferers to feel dizziness, nausea and a feeling of confusion whenever they are close to a WiFi signal. In fact, Miller has complained to missing several important DJ-ing gigs across the EU because hotels, airports and trainms offering wireless internet access affect his condition.
The condition is not just affecting the UK though, as a group of residents in Santa Fe, New Mexico, last year asked the city to remove WiFi from public buildings. Residents claimed they too, like Miller, were allergic to the frequencies and that Santa Fe authorities were violating the Americans with Diabilities Act by limiting their access to specific buildings.
In terms of recruiter issues, given the degree to which the internet is used in the modern workplace, if electromagnetic sensitivity proves to be a regular complaint of potentional employees, HR professionals will be forced to take it consideration when filling positions. And, while experts say that it's unlikely nausea problems would be caused exclusively by wireless internet, that probably won't stop suffering employees from trying to argue their cases in court.
Job boards emerge as most effective recruitment method
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Date: 11/08/2009
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A survey of hospitality HR and recruitment managers by specialist jobs website Caterer.com reveals that more than half (53%) reckon the internet is the most effective source of recruitment.
Within the internet, the single most effective method of filling vacancies emerged as specialist job boards such as Caterer.com (29%), followed by employer websites (14%). Other recruitment methods such as word of mouth (13%) and specialist recruitment consultants (10%), were seen as more useful than print advertising and general websites (both 9%).
These findings are in line with a marked increase in job-seeker traffic on Caterer.com. The hospitality CV database has grown by 44% in last 12 months, with more than 5,000 new CVs uploaded every month. Similarly, visits to the site in the six months to June are up 6% on the same period last year.
"We are increasingly seeing companies in the hospitality industry adopt the internet as their key source of recruitment. Our research tells us that recruiters not only value the quality of candidates they can access on the internet, but they are able to realise substantial cost-savings when compared to traditional recruitment means such as print advertising," said marketing manager Jonathan Hedger.
Will you start job hunting when the recession ends?
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Date: 03/07/2009
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In a recent Guardian poll, a quarter of employees say they intend to leave their current employer once the recession is over, according to a survey of 1,000 workers.
Some 16% cite the behaviour of their line managers during the recession as a reason to move on and 9% claim they have been bullied.
The war for talent has not ended with the recession and in fact now operates on a global basis, leading HR professionals said.
Speaking at a talent management conference organised by the Economist, Accenture's head of talent Peter Cheese said that demographic changes in Europe and different aspirations among the UK's young talent meant that organisations needed to reassess their strategies in the war for talent.
"McKinsey's 'war for talent' context has changed over the past five years - it's become global," he said. It was possible the recession could wrong-foot HR into missing this big picture, he added.
"We are not creating synergies and this is the time to be thinking about them," he said. He encouraged the use of marketing-style strategies to attract talent and said one problem for HR professionals was that "lots of young people don't want to work for large companies".
"There's a pressure to understand young workforce skills and capability, their performance, aspirations and engagement. The war for talent is not over," he said. "What we will see coming out of this global recession is an increased mobility of the workforce and we will get caught out if we don't react to this. Technology will play a profound role in rethinking talent management. Young people will teach us this stuff."
He continued: "We will see different models of working. We need to recruit from different talent pools and we have to be more inclusive."
Cheese highlighted countries such as India, where workers' cultures and aspirations differ to the UK and Europe.
Sharing the platform with Cheese, Sonia Wolsey-Cooper, AXA UK group HR director, also recognised the opportunity of people moving globally. She said her organisation had had to think more creatively about talent management during the downturn. She said staff had been "happy to move internationally to gain skills, rather than moving down the road", meaning talent has stayed at the company.
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Recruitment advertising agency Barkers has gone into administration and its remaining assets bought by rival Penna.
Barkers, which operates in both print and digital advertising and employs 250 staff, along with its subsidiary TCS, was forced to call in the administrators after struggling with significant debts. But the administrators were able to announce an immediate sale of the company's assets to Penna for £8.6 million.
With eight offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol and Slough, Barkers has one of the longest pedigrees of any advertising agency, having been founded by Charles Barker in 1812. The selling price for the remaining assets is indicative of the troubles of a firm that has an annual turnover of around £120 million.
All existing staff have been offered employment by Penna. No decisions have been made about whether or not the Barkers brand will continue, but the two businesses will continue to trade for the present as Penna Barkers and Penna TCS.
Despite Barkers' poor financial position, Penna said it believes the underlying business is sound and that the acquisition would enable it to trade on successfully.
Anne Riley, managing director of Penna Creative Communications, said: "It's very much business as usual. We're placing orders as of now, and the business is backed by Penna, which has substantial resources behind it. The message for clients is that the level of service will be as good as before, if not better."
She added: "Over the next 90 days we'll be looking at how best to make our businesses fit together. There will be a lot of work to do over the next few weeks before we're able to make any further announcements."
How can employers use online methods of recruitment to deliver ROI?
Online recruitment is more cost-effective, providing you do your research first.
Try implementing a recruitment management system.
Online job boards are now embracing new forms of technology.
Let's not pull any punches - the UK jobs market has been decimated in recent months. Vacancies for permanent roles have diminished; the manufacturing sector has crumbled; and let's not even mention the financial sector. In London alone year-on-year demand for financial professionals has fallen by a disastrous 69%. It all sounds incredibly gloomy, and with good reason: the current UK unemployment rate stands at 2.26m, the highest for over a decade. In other words, the employment market is a rather hostile environment. It's not any easier for recruiters, who have already had their budgets slashed during the course of the recession. The proliferation of online recruitment sites offer a guiding light for those looking to plug a hole in their company personnel - but what's the best approach to take?
Jobseekers who use Facebook and Twitter are more attractive to employers
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Date: 19/06/2009
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Half of employers believe if candidates develop a strong online identity through social networking, they are more likely to be hired.
Research from Harvey Nash and the Department for Work and Pensions shows just under a quarter of employers regularly use social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as part of their recruitment processes. And 15% said they would miss key new recruits if they did not tap into social networks.
But 44% of employers still believe social networking will only become important for recruitment in the future.
And although 92% of 18 to 24 year-olds use social networking sites, only 12% use them to make career contacts.
Matthew Garratt, HR manager at online lingerie retailer figleaves.com, said: "Social networking sites have become absolutely critical [for us] in finding new hires. Not only do they give us access to people we might not find elsewhere, but they are also an excellent way to understand more about the candidate beyond just their CV."
"Certainly figleaves.com jobseekers that have a strong online presence stand out from the crowd and we would encourage more people to invest in their online 'brand'."
Social media is being used more than email to keep employees engaged, according to a new survey.
The study found that while 75 per cent of those polled use email to engage with their employees, the figure for social media was a surprising 79 per cent.
Julie Freeman, president of IABC, said that social media can generate two-way discussions between employers and staff, while Robin McCasland of Buck Consultants pointed out that good engagement is especially important in times of economic uncertainty.
Other recent surveys looked at the impact of new media on business.
A reader pointed out that social media allows benefits such as instant feedback and crowd-sourcing ideas.
On July 16th at The British Library the UK will host its first conference for social media in recruitment.
Recruitment Training and performance management expert Bill Boorman, who has built marketing strategy around the social media arena, will be addressing the conference.
He told Onrec.com: "You don't need to be a techy to realise the potential of all these networking tools - the trick is to make sure that you are targeting the right people."
HR bosses are realising the value of online social networking
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Date: 10/06/2009
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HR decision makers are using online social networking more and more for business purposes.
According to research by Communications Management, eight out of 10 HR professionals belong to online communities or social networking sites in their daily work. One in three (32.3%) have already asked for supplier recommendations through this medium, nearly one in five (16.3%) have vetted a supplier through the same route and one in seven (14.8%) have found a new supplier in this way.
It has nothing to do with age either. Those over 45 are as likely as their younger colleagues to use online social networking to ask for supplier recommendations.
Communications Management's research also shows that the trend is likely to accelerate. More than half of respondents (51.8%) to the survey expect to move towards online social networking over the next year compared with only one in five (19.8%) who think they will use it less.
Orc International's annual Employee Opinion Survey 2008 has just been published and it reveals 71% of employees are satisfied with working for their organisation, while 68% say they feel proud to work for their chosen company.
The survey comprises responses from more than 1.5 million employees. It shows overall job satisfaction is up 4% on 2007, with pride up 1%.
Despite the survey taking place in gloomy economic times, 60% of UK employees say they feel secure in their jobs (up from 51% in 2007), while 45% say they are happy with their pay (up from 43% in 2007).
However, the survey reveals significant large sector-based differences. Satisfaction among those working in central government is down 7.4%, with pride also down 6.7%. Employees in central government who believe their pay is fair is 7.3% lower than the UK norm. In contrast, satisfaction in retail is up 8.8% compared with the national norm. The number of employees who believe they are fairly paid is also up.
The recession has sped up the decline of recruitment agencies in favour of e-hiring, exclusive research by Personnel Today has found.
Nearly half (48%) of the 400 employers surveyed in the study, said they had reduced their recruitment agency budget since last year.
Two-thirds (66%) admitted they were using their company websites as a recruitment tool for most jobs, while one-third (32%) said they used online jobs boards.
A fifth of SMEs are breaching the Data Protection Act
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Date: 02/06/2009
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Almost a fifth of businesses have unwittingly breached the Data Protection Act - and of those nearly half have done so several times.
According to research released today from BSI, 18% of 500 small and medium-sized employers surveyed were unsure if they had breached the Data Protection Act or not.
A breach could refer to an illegal transfer of information to a third party, failure to hold information securely or neglect of other legal operations. According to the research, 65% of businesses do not provide data protection training for their staff, 15% are not sure if their data protection practices conform to the Data Protection Act and 5% frequently share data regardless.
Almost one in five businesses (18%) claim data protection has become less of a priority for them during the recession.
Mike Low, director of standards at BSI, said: "The five million small and medium-sized businesses in the UK form the backbone of the British economy. These organisations are handling vast amounts of personal information on a daily basis and, while it is encouraging that some already have appropriate data protection measures in place, this survey shows there is still a long way to go."
BSI today launches a new British Standard BS10012, which is a standard for personal information. It provides a framework for organisations on the effective management of personal information.
Gordon Wanless, chairman of the Data Protection Forum, said: "The BSI survey backs up what we have known for some time - many organisations find the legislation in this area complex."
"The standard can help organisations put in place measures that will lead to compliance and demonstrate they are handling personal information responsibly."
The list of preferred bidders for the first round of Flexible New Deal contracts to provide welfare-to-work services has been published.
"The Department of Work and Pensions has appointed a diverse mix of organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors, combining existing providers with new entrants to the UK welfare-to-work market," said Amanda McIntyre, director of the Employment Related Services Association, which represents independent providers of welfare-to-work services.
"This should bring new approaches towards supporting people into work, so long as providers are given the freedom to innovate."
The preferred bidders for the first round are:
A4e - Contract package area includes Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire & Rutland; Central London, Lambeth Southwark & Wandsworth; North and East Yorkshire and Humber and Tees Valley; South Yorkshire and Derbyshire; Black Country
Calder Holdings BV - Central London, Lambeth Southwark & Wandsworth
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council - Black Country
Max Employment UK - Surrey, Sussex and Kent
Mentor Employment & Skills - Birmingham and Solihull
Pertemps People Development Group - Coventry and Warwickshire, The Marches and Staffordshire
Remploy - South Yorkshire & Derbyshire
Seetec - Birmingham and Solihull
Serco - Coventry and Warwickshire, The Marches and Staffordshire; Greater Manchester Central and Greater Manchester East and West; North and Mid Wales and South East Wales
Skills Training UK - Surrey, Sussex and Kent
The Wise Group - Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders, Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire Dumfries, Galloway and Inverclyde; Leicershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire
Work Directions - Edinburgh, Lothian and Borders, Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire Dumfries, Galloway and Inverclyde; Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire
Working Links - Devon and Cornwall; Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire; North and East Yorkshire and Humber and Tees Valley; South Wales Valleys and South West Wales
One in 10 employers face skills shortage despite recession
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Date: 29/05/2009
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One in 10 (11%) of UK employers are facing difficulties in recruiting the staff they require despite the recession, according to the fourth Manpower Annual Talent Shortage Survey released today. The figures remain consistent compared to the 2008 findings when 12% of employers surveyed highlighted difficulties in recruiting the right staff. However, the figures represent a marked improvement from 2007 and 2006 when 34% and 42% of employers respectively cited difficulties recruiting staff with the right skills.
The independent research of 2,238 UK employers reveals that the most difficult positions to fill are: Engineers, Skilled Trades, Sales Representatives and Management / Executives. For the first time, Engineers tops the poll. Skilled Trades still rank highly in second place and Sales Representatives have moved back into the top three for the first time since the survey began in 2006.
Machinists / Machine Operators and Technicians enter the Top 10 for the first time and Restaurant & Hotel Staff re-enter the chart for the first time since 2006. Half of the positions from last year make the chart this year. Interestingly, Nurses drop out of the Top 10 in 2009 despite the NHS's need for specialist positions.
Mark Cahill, Managing Director of Manpower UK, comments: "Despite the highest levels of unemployment the UK has experienced for over a decade, employers are still struggling to recruit people with the skills they require. In this climate employers can afford to be very specific when looking to hire new staff and therefore companies are demanding more from employees, for example a PA may now need to have accounting or language skills to be considered for a role when traditionally these skills would not have been essential to secure employment."
"To address the skills disparity, companies need to take the opportunity now to upskill and even re-train their existing staff so that they will be in a strong position when the economy recovers. As after all, people and their skills will always be a company's greatest asset, so employers should be looking to safeguard their talent and therefore reduce future skills gaps."
Around the world, the survey of 39,000 employers across 33 countries and territories revealed that the percentage of employers having difficulty finding the right people to fill jobs has remained static, 31 percent struggled to fill positions last year compared to 30 percent this year. Employers having the most difficulty finding the right people to fill jobs are those in Romania (62%), Taiwan (62%), Peru (56%), Japan (55%), Australia (49%), Costa Rica (48%) and Poland (48%). In addition to the UK, the talent shortage appears to be least problematic in Ireland (5%), Spain (8%), China (15%) and the Czech Republic (17%).
At a global level, the most sought after roles are similar to those in the UK with Skilled Manual Trades, Sales Representatives and Technicians the positions hardest to fill.
Today's survey announcement coincides with the publication of the Manpower White Paper, Global Talent Crunch - Why Employer Branding Matters Now, which argues that a strong employer brand will help organizations attract and retain the best talent; and therefore enable them to win during these challenging times and achieve their growth plans.
Internet users in Turkey spend more time online and consume more pages than users in other European countries.
In April 2009, more than 17 million people in Turkey age 15 and older accessed the Internet from a home or work location, consuming an average 3,044 pages per visitor.
Of the 17 European countries individually reported by comScore, Germany's online audience was the largest with 40 million visitors in April 2009, followed by the U.K. (36.8 million visitors), and France (36.3 million visitors). The Internet audience in Turkey was the seventh largest with 17.8 million visitors, making it the second largest country in Eastern Europe behind Russia (31.3 million visitors). Internet users in Turkey were also found to be the most engaged users in Europe, spending an average 32 hours and viewing an average 3,044 pages of content per month.
"The online population of Turkey far surpasses the rest of Europe in terms of time spent and content consumed per person," said Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe. "Much of this heavy engagement is driven by usage of social networking and entertainment media sites, which maintain users' attention for extended periods of time. There are certainly excellent digital marketing and advertising opportunities in reaching these 17 million Internet users who are so engaged with the medium."
Which are the most popular sites for online job seekers?
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Date: 28/05/2009
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According to Hitwise UK, the internet intelligence organisation, market share of job seeker traffic for March 2009 across the top 'job sites' was as follows:
Online job seekers prepared to be flexible to get the right job?
The largest ever online recruitment survey shows that online job seekers are prepared to be increasingly flexible to get the job that they want.
A surprisingly high percentage - 76% - of UK based online job seekers would relocate overseas to improve their career prospects and would also be prepared to take a course or train to find a new role.
The findings form part of NORAS 2009 - the UK's largest online recruitment research project, which surveyed more than 50,000 candidates across 31 online job boards.
Interestingly, the most likely job seekers to relocate overseas are Directors or Senior Managers, who constitute nearly one fifth of the total number prepared to relocate. In contrast, those who are prepared to take a course or train to improve their career prospects are more likely to hold more junior positions, constituting 37% of this category.
Online job seekers who would relocate overseas or train to get a job were also more pro-active in their approach to looking for a job utilising more methods and channels to search for jobs than the average job seeker.
Giles Guest, managing director of Enhance Media, the online recruitment research and strategy company that produces NORAS commented - "In the current economic climate the competition for vacancies has increased and candidates appear to be increasingly willing to expand their skills and search outside to get the job that they want. The detailed NORAS research helps employers and participating job boards target flexible candidates to fill more complex or difficult roles."
The NORAS 2009 results are free to download at www.noras.co.uk
When they joined the workforce in the late 1990's, Generation Y (Gen Y) brought a different set of strengths, but with those strengths came new challenges for employers too.
Previously, demand was high for this technically savvy generation and the bargaining power seemed to lie firmly in their hands. But during the recession, Gen Y faces a certain problem: fewer jobs and fierce competition. Recruiters can be fussy; demanding very specific skills and experience which are more likely to be available as the market becomes loaded with the unfortunate victims of redundancy. These changes in the economic climate are set to challenge Gen Y's values and outlook - forcing them to re-evaluate their attitudes to work.
Gen Y, a burgeoning generation of 70 million; born between 1977 and 2002, is characterised by individuals who have come of age in a buoyant economy; they have not experienced the hardships of unemployment or previous recessions that the 'Baby Boomers' (born between 1946 and 1964) have faced.
Because Gen Y was born into a skill-short market they have been able to pick and choose among organisations more readily than any generation which preceded them. They brought with them a new mindset and expectations about work; a mindset different enough for top organisations to develop strategies to attract, recruit, develop and retain this group specifically.
But the first of the Baby Boomers who have become eligible for retirement are not retiring en masse as previously expected, and many are choosing to remain in their jobs through this downturn. This has further highlighted stark inter-generational differences between Gen Y and the Baby Boomers and has led to the question: Are Generation Y's demands coming to an end?
One characteristic Gen Y does possess that will assist them in the downturn is short-term thinking. Business leaders have been forced to learn this, with the phrase "Vision is out, direction is in" being appropriately applied. Yet, a point to consider as we face the recession is whether Gen Y will be able to alter their values and attitudes and adequately deal with this new economic landscape.
So will the values from the Baby Boomers resurface in Gen Y? How Will Attitudes Change? ...
The number of people out of work in the UK rose 244,000 to 2.22 million in the first three months of 2009, the Office of National Statistics has revealed today.
The jobless rate rose from 6.7 per cent to 7.1 per cent, the largest since 1981. Unemployment benefit claimants in April rose 57,100 to 1.51 million.
Kevin Green, the REC's Chief Executive, said: "Although the ONS figures show a significant jump in unemployment, the rate of deterioration in the jobs market is showing signs of easing according to the latest REC Report on Jobs. As demand returns to the economy, employers' initial focus is likely to be on hiring temporary, contract and interim workers."
"A flexible workforce will help businesses respond to this demand by providing a stepping stone back into work for the unemployed. It is crucial then that the current consultation on implementation of the Agency Workers Directive in the UK protects the flexibility of the temp market and does not hamper employers' ability to hire temporary workers."
Job satisfaction rises as workers 'grin and bear it'
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Date: 05/05/2009
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Employees are more satisfied with their jobs now than they were three years ago, suggesting that staff are counting their blessings during the downturn, according to CIPD research.
In the Institute's new Employee Outlook survey of 3,000 people, the number of satisfied employees exceeded the number of dissatisfied employees by 46 percentage points. In the last equivalent survey in 2006, the difference was 26 percentage points.
However, there are also signs of fault lines developing. Fifty-two per cent of respondents said their level of stress at work has increased recently and 37 per cent were living in fear of redundancy. "Job satisfaction may have edged up - but this could be the employee opinion survey equivalent of a fixed grin," said Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser at the CIPD and co-author of the survey.
"Employees who are grateful to have a job at all are less likely to grumble and more likely to see scorched earth rather than greener grass on the other side of the fence." However, he said that the survey highlights the impact the recession is having on the workplace.
"Without action to tackle some of the stresses and strains that are clear in our survey, employers could find employees' health and well-being deteriorating, and employee engagement tailing off at precisely the time they need all hands to the pump to survive the recession and thrive in the recovery," he said.
The service provided by recruitment firms needs "fundamental change" if it is to be flexible enough to meet the agendas of HR departments, according to the Association of Executive Recruiters (AER).
Garry Thompson, former HR director of online travel agent Opodo and founder of Aequus Consulting, said: "It is an extremely expensive decision to go to search [agencies] and so it has to be right and justified. Hefty retained recruitment fees are very hard to swallow especially in the current climate.
"HR directors will be looking for more cost-effective ways for flexibility in the way fees are charged as most of them will have had their budgets slashed."
The AER claims HR directors now have more choice than ever in how to recruit, for example, business networking, executive job searches, research companies or directly employing experienced recruiters. Recruiters were warned after the recession they will need to reconsider their methods.
Derek Smart, chair of the AER, added employers are now able to find staff for themselves. He said: "There is a fundamental shift in our methods of doing business affecting all players in the search industry with only those who are flexible enough to change surviving."
Organisations that ban social networking sites and other Web 2.0 technologies at work will not be able to attract future talent, delegates at the CIPD's HRD conference were told.
Vaughan Walker, a learning technologies expert at the accountants Moore Stephens, said that companies that restricted access to Web 2.0 tools and sites such as Facebook and Twitter risked alienating a new generation of workers who used them "like an extension of their arm". He said curbing their use also prevented "a fantastic source of continuing professional development" and risked de-motivating employees.
"If you don't adopt these tools you are implying you don't trust your employees and they are going to play on them all day long - and that is insulting to a lot of people," he said. "Think what will happen if you don't do it. You won't be able to attract new entrants to whom these tools are part of their toolkit and you won't be able to retain them. It's crucial."
Peter Butler, head of learning at BT Group, agreed that using Web 2.0 technologies to help deliver learning would be key to attracting future talent. "If we don't embrace this in organisations people will probably not join us in the future. They will go to ones that do," he said.
BT is currently developing a new online learning portal, named "dare to share", integrating all existing applications that employees use, such as blogs, wikis and discussion forums, into one place. The site enables staff toupload and share their own content, including videos and podcasts, all of which can be downloaded onto mobile phones and MP3 players as well as PCs.
Butler said the business case for the portal was "resounding", estimating that it had saved them £8 million in its first year because the learning could be delivered faster and more effectively. With all the technology already in place the only costs incurred in setting it up were through project management and marketing.
Other business drivers included keeping knowledge in the workforce, eliminating organisational silos and increasing employee engagement. About 5,000 of the firm's 100,000 employees have access to the portal, which will eventually be rolled out to everyone.
Butler added that the new portal would not replace formal learning, but was "bridging the gap" between formal and informal learning. "We are trying to enable them to use 2.0 to enhance learning and bring a new dimension to it. This is developed by anyone and delivered by anyone in real time," he said.
He advised delegates "not to get in the way of this because you can embrace it, understand it and enable it".
The long-awaited Equality Bill has been published today, setting new laws to help narrow the gap between gender pay and strengthen anti-discrimination legislation.
The Bill, expected to come into force by autumn 2010, is set to replace nine laws and more than 100 other measures with one single Act to make it easier for employers and staff to understand their legal rights and obligations.
Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality, said: "Today we publish our tough new Equality Bill, promised in our manifesto, building on our actions over the past 10 years. It will make Britain a more equal place, and help us build a stronger economy and fairer society for the future."
The Bill will require all employers with more than 250 staff to report their gender pay gap from 2013, if sufficient progress on reporting has not already been made voluntarily.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission will develop a set of metrics for gender pay reports in consultation with business, unions and others over the summer, and the commission will then monitor the progress of reporting within the private sector annually.
Public bodies with more than 150 employees will also be required to report on gender pay as well as other equality data including the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic workers.
Further measures to bring equality to pay include banning employers' ability to use employment contracts to prevent staff talking about their wages. Currently, nearly one-quarter of employers stop their staff from discussing their salaries, and the government hopes lifting this will allow more women to challenge unlawful pay.
Harman said: "We will shine the spotlight in every workplace on the hidden pay discrimination against women."
Vera Baird, Solicitor General, added: "Employers will no longer be able to rely on keeping their pay structures secret. We will ban secrecy clauses in employment contracts, so that women can challenge unfair pay. And we will encourage businesses to report on gender pay, but let us make no mistake: if voluntary measures do not work, we will take stronger measures to ensure equal pay for women."
Last week, business groups expressed concern that the introduction of equal pay audits would hit businesses as they struggle to emerge from the recession.
The Bill will also enable employers to favour under-represented groups during recruitment processes - provided the candidates are of equal suitability - to increase the diversity of their workforces.
Harman said the Bill also aims to tackle social-economic inequality by putting a new duty on all public bodies to consider what action they can take to reduce socio-economic inequality when making strategic decisions about spending and services.
"We know that inequality is grounded not just in gender, race, disability, age and sexual orientation, but also by class. So we will require public bodies when they make strategic decisions to help narrow the gap between rich and poor," said Harman.
Employment tribunals will also be given wider powers to make recommendations to firms on how to improve work practices. Currently, tribunals can only offer recommendations to the individual who brings the case, and they often end up leaving the company.
Under the Equality Bill, tribunals will be able to deliver recommendations directly to firms to ensure similar types of discrimination are not repeated.
James Purnell, secretary of state for work and pensions, said: "The government wants to make sure each person gets the help and support they need to overcome their barriers to work, fulfil their potential, and build a better life for themselves and their families."
They say every cloud has a silver lining and in these dark economic times, it seems it is the UK's volunteer movement that may be set to flourish.
As more and more people find themselves out of work, so the number of people taking an interest in volunteer work soars, new research shows.
Some of the UK's largest volunteering organisations, including CSV and YouthNet, have reported seeing the number of applicants rocket.
Among them are new graduates, laid-off workers in their 30s and 40s, as well as older people losing out on jobs to younger people in an increasingly competitive market.
Nearly 90% of volunteer centres in England - a kind of job centre for volunteers - saw an increase in inquiries over the six months to March, according to a survey by the Institute for Volunteering Research.
It also found of those centres polled, about three-quarters reported volunteers wanting the experience of volunteering to help them find a job.
YouthNet says applications have doubled in just one year to about 40,000 in February 2009 and CSV says full-time volunteers offering between four and 12 months are up 55%.
At first glance, volunteering might appear to be for the altruist.
But Volunteering England, which has published the research, is putting the spike in interest squarely down to the recession and people seeking a route back into employment.
There have been similar spikes in recent years, for example after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and, perhaps more surprisingly, following the announcement that London will host the 2012 Olympics.
But Mike Locke, director of public affairs for Volunteering England, said: "What we're seeing now is a remarkable increase."
It seems many see volunteering as a way to gain new skills, get a head-start in an highly competitive job market and make use of their time out of work.
David Sharples, from Tameside Volunteer Centre in Manchester, says there has been a marked shift in the type of applicants looking for voluntary work.
Historically, it was young people looking for experience in medicine, nursing or probation work. Now it is people in their 30s and 40s, recently made redundant often from manufacturing, looking to develop new skills or keeping their CVs up-to-date, he says.
"But for many, the number one reason is to occupy their time, keep active and keep a routine going," he added.
Malcolm Jones, 63, from Ashton-under-Lyne, was working as an electrician until work dried up last December.
He spent weeks ringing around agencies looking for more work but with no luck.
"I was doing fine, filling in my days. Until one day, I had just finished a pile of ironing when my wife said: 'Why not try voluntary work?'"
Last week, Mr Jones volunteered for the first time, visiting people's homes to fit smoke detectors for free.
"The idea of volunteering is not going to appeal to everyone, it depends on your age and your inclination. But I enjoyed it very much. It's no big deal to me. I enjoy meeting other folk," he said.
Will Nevitt, a roofer since he left school at 15, was also hit by the flagging building trade.
"There's no work. So I thought while I'm out of work, I may as well better myself," said the 25-year-old from Dukinfield in Greater Manchester.
This week, he starts teaching youngsters football and other outdoor activities. It is the start of a volunteer project but he is hoping it will also be the start of a new career for him.
Emily Cook found volunteer work could lead to better things. She graduated from Sheffield University with a 2:2 in history, confident it would not be long before she found a job.
"People said: 'you will be fine', but there was absolutely nothing out there," she said.
Now 23, she has a permanent job with the National Fire Service College in Gloucestershire and puts that down to a four-month CSV volunteering project.
"My CV looked better with a bit of volunteering on it and I gained in confidence," she said.
Volunteering England says it is too early to provide figures for the actual number of people doing voluntary work since the start of the recession.
The latest Department of Communities figures show about 40% of adults in England volunteered at least once a year up to September 2008, and 26% volunteered at least once a month.
HR professionals and recruiters have been warned to be on their guard as 24% of jobseekers are prepared to lie in interviews and 15% would exaggerate their skills and qualifications.
According to a report from talent assessment company SHL Group, 23% of job applicants said the tough economic climate - plus the belief other applicants would lie as well - led them to exaggerate in order to stand a chance of being recruited.
While 54% claimed they would never lie, a third said they would be persuaded for a good salary or a dream job.
Men are more likely to lie in job interviews - 26% compared with 22% of women - and staff aged 18-24 are more likely to stretch the truth - 37% compared with 26% of 35-44 year olds.
James Bywater, head psychologist at SHL Group, said: "Given the current job market, the results of our survey are really not that startling and, if anything, recruiters can expect to see more of this attitude to CVs and interviews as redundancy programmes contribute to a larger talent pool."
And Steve Huxham, chairman of The Recruitment Society, added: "I would agree the majority of jobseekers are honest but, given the current climate where candidates are up against tough competition for a job, they are bound to be tempted to elaborate their skills, qualifications or education to stand out from the rest."
"Now is definitely not the time to cut back on robust recruitment processes. More than ever recruiters should be undertaking the necessary checks and references but also looking out for hard-to-identify lies such as 'experience by proxy' where a candidate will claim full credit for a project when in fact they were on the sidelines and do not have the knowledge or skills to repeat that work. This can only really be spotted by sticking to a thorough assessment process."
The Prime Minister has insisted that thousands of green jobs will be created in the UK, despite fears that the government is not providing enough financial support.
In next week's Budget, chancellor Alistair Darling will unveil plans to boost a low carbon industrial strategy that could create 400,000 environmental sector jobs by 2018, Gordon Brown said today.
Pilot cities across the UK will also install charging points for electric cars, as the government tries to show its commitment to going green.
Brown told The Independent: "It is not just what we do to give real help to people and business now, but about setting a path for the future as well."
"[The green energy sector] is a job creator, a quality of life improver and an environment-enhancing measure," he added.
Yesterday, a report by think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research warned the UK would miss out on at least 70,000 green jobs in the offshore wind sector if the government did not provide serious financial support.
A further 133,000 jobs in the renewable energy industry could be lost to manufacturers abroad if the UK did not enable British firms to start work and create jobs, the report warned.
The Bank of England has also warned the government has little money left after bailing out failed banks and cutting value-added tax.
But Brown told the paper the UK could increase its output of green goods and services by 50% to £1.5bn over the next few years.
"This is a major part of our plan for recovery in the budget," he said. "A different type of economy will emerge in the recovery if we are prepared to invest in the future," he said.
Due to increasing numbers of employers publishing job vacancies on Twitter, the social networking site has launched a new tool to help applicants search for jobs near them.
Twitter has launched a 'job map' on its job search site, so applicants can see all the jobs in their local area.
The tool, on www.twitterjobsearch.com, allows applicants to view the number of jobs in a continent, country or specific location and drill down to more detail as the map zooms in. Jobs are signposted with blue markers.
The site will show the jobs employers have posted and it is searchable by city or postcode. It will update every few minutes to show all the vacancies posted in the previous 72 hours.
Employers have been quick to use the site to post their vacancies, according to Bill Fischer, co-founder of TwitterJobSearch. He said: "It is still surprising to see the global reach of businesses using Twitter for their recruitment efforts. Mapping the vacancies shows how quickly the hiring community is adopting it. The UK and US are clearly leading the pack currently but we are already plotting jobs from places as far-flung as Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria and Azerbaijan."
Employees waste time on personal e-mail and surfing
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Date: 09/04/2009
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A survey from a leading employment law consultancy has revealed that employees waste an average of two hours a day with personal Internet and e-mail usage whilst at work, with 91% of employees admitting to having sent personal e-mail at work. The Peninsula survey also found a high number of employers to be taking action, with 66% revealing they have disciplined their staff over the problem.
Peter Done, Managing Director of Peninsula said today, "The Internet is again posing problems for employers as they try to stop their staff wasting the day. Employers need to get strict and make employees aware that personal e-mail can not interfere with the working day. Putting a ban on all personal Internet and e-mail usage has been a tactic used by some employers but employees are seemingly ignoring these policies and continuing to use the Internet whenever they want."
Mr Done continues, "Employers need to set out stringent guidelines of what is expected when using the Internet and e-mail within the workplace. If you do choose to allow personal e-mail to be sent, set out rules and guidelines and restrict use to lunch hours and breaks. Implementing clear usage policies are a fundamental part of modern business and clear guidelines ensure that your employees know what is expected and also lets them know what action will be taken should they ignore the policy."
"Employees need to understand that they are getting paid to work and shouldn't be browsing the web or sending personal e-mail. Some e-mail content can be considered very offensive and so employees shouldn't be risking possible disciplinary action on these grounds. If employers do have in place any type of restrictions on Internet and e-mail usage, employees would be risking disciplinary action and in some cases, could even risk dismissal."
To conclude, Peter Done said, "Employers need to get their Internet and e-mail policies set out and make sure their employees aren't wasting away the day sending personal e-mail or surfing the net. Regular checks should be done and action taken against anyone failing to adhere to the company policy. Employees need to remember they are being paid to work, not e-mail their friends and need to understand that they are genuinely risking their job by sending personal e-mail."
HR professionals not measuring return on investment
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Date: 08/04/2009
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A report from Talent Q shows 82% of HR staff do not measure the return on investment of their practices - which is why they struggle to be seen to provide value to their organisations.
Emma Bothwell, HR director of catering firm Thomas Franks, said: "It is a tough environment and in a sector where margins are rarely more than single digit, HR needs to add value - and then be able to prove it."
"Many companies talk about people being their most valuable asset, but we would argue if that is really the case they should be measuring it."
And Alan Bourne, director of Talent Q, added: "Organisations should have a much clearer understanding of the return gained through their investment in people. This must include accurately assessing external and internal talent to select and promote the best people."
"A wealth of empirical data shows progressive HR practice achieves higher retention, productivity and business performance. With costs coming under a high level of scrutiny, it is incumbent on HR practitioners to demonstrate their worth."
This month sees a raft of new employment law regulations affecting employers and employees alike.
These include the repeal of the statutory dispute resolution procedures, the debut of the new Acas code, the extension of the right to request flexible working to parents with children aged 16 or under, and rises in statutory holiday entitlement.
Personnel Today magazine asked employment lawyers to sum up the changes, say what they mean for employers and rate them as to how useful they are for employers.
Rises in statutory sick pay (SSP) from 6 April
In a nutshell: SSP rises to £79.15 per week.
Actions: Employers who operate a non-contractual sick pay scheme will need to amend their records and any commercial payroll software to reflect this change. In addition, written policies that detail the level of SSP payable will also need to be updated.
Concerns: To avoid any HMRC trouble, make sure to pay the amended rate with immediate effect and to record this in all tax documentation. Otherwise your ability to reclaim SSP under the Percentage Threshold Scheme could be affected.
Usefulness rating for employers: 2 stars - at a time of reduced turnover and diminishing returns, this increase is unlikely to be welcomed by employers.
Nicholas Siddall, barrister, Kings Chambers (specialising in employment and industrial relations law)
The new Acas code applies from 6 April
In a nutshell: The revised Acas Code of Practice replaces the statutory dispute resolution procedures and will become the keystone of discipline and grievance matters. The emphasis is on resolving issues in the workplace. It is not legally binding and a failure to follow it will not make any dismissal arising out of a disciplinary matter automatically unfair.
Actions: Employers should review their existing discipline and grievance policies and train staff on the impact of the new regime.
Concerns: Where there has been an unreasonable failure to follow the code (by employer or employee), a tribunal can adjust any compensation awarded by up to 25% if it considers it just and equitable to do so in all the circumstances.
Usefulness rating: 3 stars
Tim Marshall, partner, DLA Piper
Increased penalties for failure to pay the national minimum wage (NMW) apply from 6 April
In a nutshell: Where employers have failed to pay the NMW, they will face a penalty of 50% of the amount of the underpayment, which may be enforced by HMRC, which also gains powers to remove wage records for inspection, and to use search and seize powers when investigating criminal offences relating to the NMW.
Actions: Employers should ensure the NMW is paid to all qualifying employees, and that no deductions are made that could take the worker's average pay below the NMW. Employers should also ensure that accurate records are kept.
Concerns: Even though there are only a limited number of NMW compliance officers at HMRC, employers should note that individual employees may still enforce the NMW themselves, by claiming in a court or employment tribunal.
Usefulness rating: 0 stars
Robert J Washington, associate, Hogan & Hartson
Increase in annual statutory holiday entitlement from 1 April
In a nutshell: On 1 April, the annual statutory holiday entitlement is due to increase from 4.8 weeks, or 24 days, to a minimum of 5.6 weeks or, for a full-time worker, 28 days - public holidays may be included.
Actions: Employers who currently offer fewer than 28 days holiday per year, including public holidays, need to increase employee holiday entitlement or risk employment tribunal claims. For employers whose holiday year does not run 31 March-1 April, an online calculator is available at businesslink.gov.uk to assist calculating pro-rata entitlement.
Concerns: The 28 days statutory holiday entitlement may not, after 1 April, be replaced by a payment in lieu, except on termination. Employers need to consider, in particular, the holiday entitlement of part-time workers who may not work on public holidays.
Usefulness rating: 2 stars - many employers already give workers 20 days' holiday, plus bank and public holidays (ie a total of 28 days) and so will be unaffected by the change.
Katie Clarke, partner, McDermott, Will & Emery
Increases to statutory maternity, paternity and adoption pay from 5 April
In a nutshell: The prescribed weekly rates of statutory maternity pay, (SMP), statutory paternity pay (SPP), and statutory adoption pay (SAP) will be increased with effect from 5 April. The prescribed weekly rate of SMP, SPP and SAP will be £123.06 (up from £117.18).
Actions: Ensure the new rates are paid as appropriate.
Concerns: None.
Usefulness rating: 2 stars - any increase in staff costs is unwelcome in the current economic climate.
Bob Cordran, partner, Thomas Eggar
Withdrawal of the VAT Staff Hire Concession from 1 April
In a nutshell: From 1 April, the VAT Staff Hire Concession will be withdrawn and businesses supplying temporary staff will no longer be entitled to this concession. Consequently, suppliers of temporary staff will charge VAT (15%) on the full value of the staff supplied. Previously, VAT was charged only on the amount of their fee for supplying the individual and not on the full value of their supplies, including salaries.There are a few exemptions related to the supply of disabled workers and medical and care services.
Actions: Unless you are covered by a concession, it will have to be paid - check thoroughly that you have been billed correctly.
Concerns: Its withdrawal will affect recipients who are unable to recover any or all of the VAT on supplies of staff, typically those in the financial services, education, healthcare or charities sector.
Usefulness rating: 0 stars - The loss of the concession will have a direct impact on absolute costs.
Christie's is one of the largest cancer treatment centres in Europe and a leading centre for clinical trials in the UK. They enjoy an international reputation for excellence, treating more than 40,000 patients every year. Charitable funds are of vital importance in helping Christie's reach its vision of a future without cancer.
War for talent leads to pay rises despite downturn
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Date: 31/03/2009
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The war for talent rages on despite the recession as more than two thirds (67%) of employers are planning to award some form of pay rise in 2009.
Research from talent management firm Ochre House shows more than a third (34%) of organisations have the same HR budget as last year and 16% have a bigger budget. And while 19% are making redundancies, 14% predict their headcount will increase this year.
Half the organisations surveyed (50%) said they would be awarding pay rises of 2%-3% this year, down from 56% in 2008.
Eight out of 10 organisations are optimistic about the economy in predicting things will improve either in or before 2010.
Chris Herrmannsen, CEO of Ochre House, said: "Although we are definitely well into a serious downturn, there appears to be a general unwillingness to shed staff if it can be avoided."
TwitterJobSearch gets the juice out of Twitter to help you find a job
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Date: 25/03/2009
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So you've probably heard about Twitter quite a bit this year, right?! Whether it's from the news, presenters like Jonathan Ross and Ellen DeGeneres, celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Aston Kutcher and Demi Moore, or even friends and family, Twitter is fast becoming the 'next big thing'. But did you know that in amongst all the tweeting and twittering, there are thousands upon thousands of great job opportunities which often appear on Twitter before they go anywhere else?
Twitter is now able to help people find out about all these jobs by organising them onto a simple, searchable website. Twitter members know just how hard it can be to find information from the 1.3 billion plus (yes, really!) messages posted so far and trying to search for all the different words used to describe just one job takes far too long. And is it really worth spending all that time registering and finding the recruiters to speak to or jobs to apply for unless you're planning on using it regularly?
This is why TwitterJobSearch helps. Instead of needing to become a Twitter Master, just visit TwitterJobSearch to get hold of every single job opportunity that has been added onto the Twitter site. Find jobs by browsing through different industries, locations, salaries and more, or just type in the kind of thing you're looking for and TwitterJobSearch will do the rest. As a quick example, searching on Twitter for 'marketing manager new York job' gives 19 jobs, on TwitterJobSearch you get 4122. If being a Sales Director in London is the job you want, searching on Twitter gives you 4, yet TwitterJobSearch finds you 6202! Its clever technology knows that retailing can include shops or stores, sales also means business development and branding is part of marketing, which gives you much more choice.
Once you've found the right kind of job, it's quick and easy to sort out the results by date added, job type or skills for example to get the perfect shortlist together. On the site, you can of course choose to click over to the message on Twitter, or follow the person who posted it, but you can also jump straight across to the website that has the vacancy if that's why you came to visit the TwitterJobSearch site. Since the website came out just one week ago, TwitterJobSearch has already sent people to over 100,000 job opportunities, which shows just how useful it is!
TwitterJobSearch currently has over 30,000 jobs covering every industry and every type of job, about 3% of all the vacancies out there in fact. As more businesses use Twitter, more jobs will be added there, all of which immediately go on TwitterJobSearch. With bad news on the work front coming out all too often at the moment, the 100% free to use TwitterJobSearch is the first place to visit if you need to get a job this year.
Ten signs you might be made redundant (and what to do)
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Date: 24/03/2009
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As iProfile.org reveals nearly 30% of British workers believe there's a good chance they will be made redundant this year, the online CV expert highlights the ten signs you should be looking out for and how to be prepared.
With the British Chambers of Commerce predicting that one in ten of us could be jobless by summer next year, it's unsurprising that a recent poll by iProfile.org found that nearly 30% of workers believe there is a good chance they will be made redundant in the next 12 months. More worrying is that 61% are completely unprepared for losing their job and have done nothing to increase their chances of keeping it.
To help those worried about their job, online CV provider iProfile.org has identified ten signs that redundancy could well be on the horizon. Spotting the signs your job might be in danger, before it's too late, can put you in a much stronger position, either by allowing you to show your employer how valuable you are or by giving you a head start in looking for something else.
Ten signs to look out for:
1. Your company isn't doing well/the boss gives a speech on tough times ahead
2. Recruitment freeze
3. Rumours around work about potential redundancies
4. Your annual pay review is postponed/you're overlooked for an expected promotion
5. Your expense account/company car allowance gets cut
6. The annual party is cancelled
7. Your manager or boss does not include you in meetings
8. Large number of teams/people being reorganised
9. Unusual amount of off-site/closed-door meetings with senior management
10. Extreme micro management and criticism
While these signs may not always spell the end, if they do sound familiar making yourself indispensable to your employer can only work in your favour.
Top tips for jobkeeping:
Give your clients or customers the best possible service - it will be harder for your employer to make you redundant if customers like you
Ask to take on more responsibilities - show that you have capacity to produce more than you currently are
Shout about your successes - make sure your boss knows about your great new sales win by dropping it into conversation next time you're both in the lift
Are you dressed for success? As the mantra goes - dress for the job you want, not the job you've got
Ask for a mentor/offer to be someone's mentor to show your commitment to the business, and your eagerness to learn
Volunteer for more training - it shows you're prepared to adapt and by taking on new responsibilities and skills, you're making yourself more valuable to an employer
No matter what effort you put in, you still may find yourself facing redundancy. The best preparation you can make is to get you CV ready before you get any bad news. If you're ready to hit the ground running this will put you one step ahead, giving you first pick of any relevant jobs against other colleagues. Worryingly, research by iProfile.org has shown that 83% of employees don't keep their CV updated.
The signs of redundancy and tops tips for keeping your job form part of iProfile.org's recent Recession Survival Guide for Jobseekers and Jobkeepers, aimed at addressing the gap between the number of workers who think they will be made redundant and the number who are preparing for it.
"We understand that facing unemployment can be a daunting time, but we're surprised by how little people are doing to help improve their situation," explains Daniel Elkins, co-Founder, iProfile.org. "Our research found that only 39% of those surveyed had taken measures to safeguard their job; just 16% had worked unpaid overtime; 8% of employees have postponed their holidays; a tiny 3% have bought smarter clothes for work; and 2% have volunteered to take a pay cut or switch from full time to part time employment."
Elkins continues, "One of the easiest and most effective things jobseekers or jobkeepers can do is update their CV, however, our survey results show that only 17% of workers have ensured their CV is up-to-date. Your CV is the key to securing a job, and in the current climate you never know when you might need it. If you're made redundant it's possible you won't be able to return to your desk, let alone collect any relevant information as evidence of your work achievements."
Following the Prime Minister's 'Jobs Summit' in January, the REC has been in regular dialogue with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over proposed measures that could provide opportunities for REC members.
The DWP is now seeking expressions of interest from agencies who are interested in delivering additional support for Jobseekers from professional or higher-end of the jobs market.
The scheme, which will go live on 6th April, will use approved recruitment agencies to provide guidance on job hunting activities, skills needs and possible job opportunities. Candidates will be referred to the project through Jobcentre Plus advisers.
Recruitment companies will be expected to show past experience of working with the target group and an indication of the catchment area in which they operate. In addition, REC members can refer to the Code of Practice, industry qualifications and other quality measures to underline their credentials.
Participating recruitment agencies will receive £150 per person payable on completion of the provision and a customised action plan for the job-seeker. Although this will mainly be one to one support, some agencies may chose to provide some of the support through group sessions.
There are huge time pressures to get new initiatives up and running which is why the new scheme is being brought in at such short notice.
The speed of implementation has raised a number of concerns that the REC is currently discussing with senior DWP officials. Specific issues include what quality control measures can be put in place and how the referral process will operate in practice.
The REC is currently working with Government on other campaigns for example, extending the 'golden hello' payment that was announced at the PM's Jobs Summit to temp assignments. The Employment Minister Tony McNulty confirmed this week that the Government are considering the RECs proposals.
Not so long ago, brand identities had an air of permanence. Woolworths was seen as a reliable employer, working for Northern Rock made you the pride of a regional community, and RBS was an enviable destination for high-flying graduates. But now that such long-held reputations can be burst in the blink of an eye, has the logic of employer branding been undermined - or has the recession merely pushed other brands to the fore?
One company whose brand is flying high is KPMG, which has just been named top of the "Best Companies to Work For" list in The Sunday Times, for the third time in four years. But the consultancy is far from immune to the downturn: only two months ago it announced contingency plans to allow staff flexible working, such as four-day weeks or sabbaticals, to stave off economic pressure. So why do employees continue to view its brand so positively?
"We've been working hard on internal communications with our people, and making our leadership visible," says Rachel Campbell, head of people at KPMG. "Recession does not necessarily have to mean reduced engagement - in fact, it can mean that engagement rises if your people see that it is tough outside and that all of us inside the company are standing together."
Campbell is in no doubt about the recruitment benefits of a strong employer brand - she says that success in the Best Companies list in recent years has led to an increase in applicants, and more diversity among them - but says that such branding must be more than skin deep. "We probably spend less on marketing than many of our competitors, but I would rather invest in the experience that people have when they come to work here," she says.
The Best Companies list measures engagement by asking employees about their managers, teams and companies. Pete Bradon, head of research at Best Companies, says that while feelings about managers, teams and workplaces are concrete, feelings about brands tend to be more fickle. "Employee engagement is integral to employer brand in that it's a measure of how proud people are to work there," he says. "In some companies the firm is synonymous with a brand - Microsoft, for example - but the difficulty is that some companies cross multiple brands, such as a car dealer selling four or five brands of car. You could absolutely love working for somebody but not want to buy their products."
Banks are the most obvious example of brands that have been hit hard in the past 12 months, and the Best Companies list partly bears this out. Morgan Stanley, at number eight, is now the only financial institution in the higher echelons of the list, whereas last year it was accompanied in the top 20 by Goldman Sachs, RBS Retail and Deutsche Bank, as well as Britannia Building Society. This trend is less a result of reduced engagement and more the fact that "three or four of the major players simply didn't enter this year", according to Bradon.
The inevitable effect of the past year is that graduates are now likely to think twice about choosing banking as a profession -that's if there are jobs available for them. Indeed, the phrase "employer brand" conjures up images of recruitment - snappy stalls at graduate-recruitment fairs, lavish websites and brochures and impressive advertisements. So when recruitment grinds to a standstill, is it still worth concerning yourself with, or investing money in, your employer brand?
"That view is based on a misconception and it goes back to the fact that, too often, employer brand is perceived as being purely recruitment related," says Martin Cerullo, director of resourcing communications at Alexander Mann Solutions. "It operates through an employee's whole lifecycle - retention is just as important. In years such as this, you could argue that even more needs to be done to manage your brand proactively. Hiring is down but it has not stopped, and there are more negative perceptions out there that need to be handled."
Spending on recruitment processes might be falling, but there may be a greater call for internal communications and leadership training, says Cerullo. Tough times could alter what people value in a job: if candidates and staff are placing a greater emphasis on security, for example, your brand should reflect that.
Julia Claydon, HR director at restaurant chain Nando's, is another believer in creating a strong brand (Nando's did not enter the list this year but received the maximum three stars in Best Companies' accreditation scheme). "For me, employer brand is what we stand for - what do you want people to say about you and feel about you when they work for you," says Claydon. "In our sector, we are quite well known, but good branding through awards such as this helps when you are recruiting outside of your sector, in support functions such as HR, IT or finance. Let's face it, our sector has not always had the best name in the world for the way it treats its people."
Indeed, whether it is Iceland, KFC, McDonald's or Subway, the evidence is that retailers of affordable food are doing best in the economy, and are taking on extra staff. But many still have overcome negative perceptions about their employer brand, as opposed to their strong consumer brand.
Susan Yell is HR director at Iceland, which came fourteenth in the Best Companies list. She says that the firm's employer brand and consumer brands both revolve around creating a "family feel". But she adds: "Our challenge is to ensure that people do not confuse our positioning as a low-cost value retailer and assume that they would be faced with a 'budget' experience as an employee."
The essence of a successful brand remains elusive, but even in tough times a good brand can be an undeniable strength.
Rebecca Clake, CIPD adviser, organisation and resourcing, says: "Employer branding is still important, and in times such as these it's more important than ever. Budgets are under pressure, and it's now that HR needs to demonstrate that it is true to its principles. If you cannot avoid making redundancies, then you will need to work hard to look after the people who are leaving and the ones who remain, to retain the impression of how good an employer you are."
Using Facebook and Twitter for business relationships requires own kind of communication skills
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Date: 06/03/2009
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One in 10 employees are now using Facebook and Twitter to manage professional relationships but 30% of employees feel harassed by the sheer number of messages they receive and are unsure of the best ways to communicate.
According to a report from BT Business, 15% of people aged 18 to 24 use social networking to manage customer relationships - six times the number of over 45s that do likewise.
Bill Murphy, managing director at BT Business, said: "It is great to see business taking up new technology to build profitable relationships but many are missing out on the opportunity to get rid of the clutter and unify their communications."
But psychologist Gladeana McMahon added: "It is important people recognise the difference between communicating virtually and face-to-face. We often read others body language to gauge what people are saying, adapting our response to get a better result. In the virtual world we don't have the same clues to help us modify our behaviour so we must try to identify 'digital personality types' in other ways to ensure business success."
Some thoughts on Employer Brand by Matt Burney, Sales Director, Onrec.com / Online Recruitment Magazine.
Strong organisations are built around employees that understand your employer brand values. Sounds obvious right? Well, really it is and there are a number of companies out there that live and die by that credo but for every one that does there are hundreds that don't.
Some people will argue (believe me they have this week) that it's pointless to consider employer / employee branding at the moment, everyone is so desperate for a job that they'll do anything to keep it and there are so many candidates available that they don't have to try very hard to find the right person. Terrible attitude but I'm 100% certain that everyone in the staffing industry can name at least 2 companies off the top of their head who think that way.
So, in this climate, why is employer brand worth discussing? According to Maritz 39% of polled employees felt that brand image and reputation helped them decide to join the organisation they worked for. Net result, there are happier employees who stay in their jobs longer, have more company loyalty and will increase their productivity. That's the given, in this market though it's actually deeper than that. When there are so many candidates out there applying for roles and people feel a level of insecurity they have, perhaps, not felt before good employers need to step up to the plate and reassure current employees and really create a sense of community and dialogue about what is going on within an organisation. How many people have looked at their company's share price and felt the fear in the pit of their stomach that it can only mean one thing, whispered around the water cooler "cutbacks"?
It always amazes me that when times get tough the knee jerk for a lot of companies is to pull their heads in and shy away from being open with their staff, Jackie Orme from the CIPD was recently saying that the HR dept needs to be "more than and emergency room" and "professionals in the industry need to focus on sustainable performance, innovation and leadership." This is all absolutely true but I wonder what the HR industry has been doing all this time if it's not been doing that. I did several pieces of consultancy work (pre Onrec) with large employers discussing employer brand and reputation and it was surprising that HR usually found the employer brand conversation something new and exciting but something they had not explored, in most cases HR and Marketing had never spoken and had not considered that they should beyond the marketing team possibly providing them with an image for a press ad.
Internally changing the way you speak to your staff is easy to do, low end rewards and time taken by management teams to discuss concerns and issues can be put in place over night, creating an internal company blog that is both informative and not overly corporate in feel can break down a lot of barriers and really HR should be looking at how they can do thing like this with a low or nominal cost that can show a near instant benefit to the company.
Externally the issue is possibly even more important. As we all know a poor candidate experience leads to companies gaining a poor reputation. When I worked as a high street recruiter (many years ago), I remember one particular and very large employer who no one wanted to work for. When I met them I was impressed with their offices, attitude to their staff, training and benefits, the problem was when people applied to work there the recruitment process was so clunky and inefficient that by the time they got around to replying to applications (if they did at all) people had either got another job or decided that if they were going to be treated that way then they didn't want to work there anyway as they perceived (wrongly) that the experience of working form them would be similar. As a recruiter they were very frustrating as it could take them over a month to decide to interview pre selected candidates we had sent them.
In the world we live in right now and with a huge number of candidates in the market our response to an applicant is more important than ever.
Protecting your brand image should be at the forefront of your mind. Poor candidate experience may damage the core brand, and no one can afford to lose potential customers.
Despite the volume there will be some people you wish you could employ. O.K. So you don't have a job for them right now but when the markets are more stable and you wish you could have that person on board what would make them consider a job with you and what have you done to keep them engaged and interested?
Creating a buzz through employer branding. How many times have you seen a great recruitment site and forwarded it on to someone? I know I have to people in the industry but also to people I know are looking for work.
Engaging with your future employees. Having a dialogue is a great idea and using that to understand why people want to work for you is invaluable. Alumni groups, fan pages, review sites, they all feed into your online brand reputation, if you bother to engage with these groups then you are more likely to be viewed as an employer of choice.
Kaonix technology leads to regional employment award
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Date: 04/03/2009
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A leading Welfare-to-Work organisation is celebrating after one of its clients won a skills award at a top industry award ceremony.
Pertemps People Development Group (PPDG) worked with Jason Churchill - winner of the Work Skills award at the Local Employment Partnership (LEP) awards - for more than 12 months to provide training and coaching to support him in his job search after unsuccessfully battling unemployment for almost two years.
The ceremony - which was hosted by Jobcentre Plus at Newcastle United Football Club - awarded Mr Churchill, 37, from Southbank in Middlesbrough, following his successful transition from unemployment to full time work with ASDA, in Teesport. At the end of the evening Mr Churchill was also awarded Overall LEP Achievement Winner.
Ed Walker, employment coach at PPDG's Redcar Centre, said: "When I first met Jason he faced a number of challenges to help him on the road to employment including a lack of confidence and interview experience."
"So we sat down and chatted about his aspirations and how we could help him achieve them. Through bespoke mentoring and tailored training we empowered him to take ownership of his individual learning, which helped to accelerate his development."
"He improved his basic literacy and numeracy levels through access to in-house Learn Direct courses, participated in confidence and motivational building and benefited from the PPDG mentoring programme."
"This award win is the cherry on top of the cake for us as it highlights what we are doing provides real value and importantly celebrates his individual success too."
Using their Client-match system from Kaonix, PPDG sourced a job opportunity for Jason, which he successfully passed an interview for, and he gained a job as a warehouse operator for ASDA. Mr Churchill has not looked back; in fact he was also identified for fast-track learning with his new employers.
Ray Brown, Mr Churchill's manager at the ASDA import centre, said: "I had the privilege of interviewing Jason and realised very quickly he would integrate well with our current workforce."
"Despite the job role being alien to his previous employment history, he learned the role swiftly and in fact has a great desire now for self-improvement and has engaged in many of our staff training schemes."
"We are incredibly proud he won his award as it really symbolises the huge journey he has been on."
The award win comes after a difficult two-year period of unemployment for Mr Churchill who is proud at beating hundreds of entrants to the post: "I was over the moon when the announcer called out my name to tell me I won the award - it was such a great surprise especially after the quantity and quality of the entrants," he said.
HR needs to take advantage of the many opportunities presented by Web 2.0 technology, according to a new CIPD report.
Concerns about misuse and employee bad behaviour are creating a "Facebook fear factor" which needs to be overcome if firms are to feel the benefits of the technology, says the report, "Web 2.0 and HRM: 'Groundswell' or hype?"
HR must not lose out on the possibility of playing an important role in guiding Web 2.0's adoption to improve business performance, it warned.
The report lays out a systems framework to help HR professionals think about how web-based content in the form of text, videos, opinions and other applications can be transferred, through new Web 2.0 social media technologies, into important HR outputs.
Vanessa Robinson, CIPD adviser, organisation and resourcing, said: "Web 2.0 provides employees with new tools for collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Its open, democratic nature, however, has meant that many HR professionals are focusing on the negative side, which is a shame as Web 2.0 is here to stay."
"HR is in danger of playing catch-up as a profession in failing to advance the interests of organisations by navigating them through the undoubted benefits," she said. "Organisations will be increasingly faced with employees seeking to use Web 2.0 social media technologies at work, so rather than ignore them or ban them outright they will need to adopt sensible policies that fit a particular context."
The report cites case-study examples of organisations that have made innovative use of social networking, including T-Mobile, the NHS and the Royal Opera House.
Internet the 'only choice' for an increasing number of job seekers
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Date: 26/02/2009
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The largest ever online recruitment survey shows the number of people exclusively using the internet to look for a job has doubled since 2007.
The annual National Online Recruitment Audience Survey (NORAS), published today, surveyed over 50,000 online job seekers between September and December 2008. The results show that 1 in 7 online job seekers now use only the internet to look for jobs - a figure up from 1 in 11 a year ago and more than doubling the figure of 1 in 16 in 2007.
In addition, the NORAS results show that the internet continues to be an effective medium for job seekers, with one in four online job seekers having obtained a job that they searched for, found and applied to online.
Giles Guest, managing director of Enhance Media - the online recruitment research and strategy company that produces NORAS commented - "NORAS 2009 shows that the internet is becoming an increasingly important and dominant channel in recruitment. The year on year results also show that the downturn is accelerating the move towards online hiring as companies look to save costs wherever possible during the recruitment cycle."
The survey - now in its eighth year - also reveals that online job seekers are increasingly turning to new technologies to look for jobs, with one in ten saying that they have used a smart phone or blackberry to look for a job. Guest commented "Job seekers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and using all the online tools available to them to find new roles."
Online job seekers were also found to be willing to improve their skills and qualifications in order to get the right job, with 78% saying they would be prepared to take a course or qualification to further their career.
The NORAS 2009 results are available to download free at www.noras.co.uk from 23rd February 2009. An interactive tool is also available free and combines NORAS audience data with independent ABCe audited web site traffic figures to enable recruiters to compare job sites and choose the right job board for their recruitment needs.
ABCe have worked with Enhance Media for all of the eight annual NORAS surveys and Richard Foan, managing director stated "We are delighted to continue our work with Enhance Media and support of NORAS and welcome the commitment of recruitment websites to delivering on-going third party, independently audited web traffic data to industry agreed standards."
As the economic downturn bites, a new report from the Cranfield School of Management, commissioned by learndirect Business, reveals organisations that invest in their staff are best placed to save money (44 per cent); improve staff motivation (33 per cent); and increase employee retention
(52 per cent).
The Nurturing Talent report found employers making strategic, rather than operational staff development decisions, are best placed to achieve these benefits - for example, successful organisations are typified by those that use formal training policies to nurture talent (45 per cent). Less successful organisations were more likely to train staff on an ad hoc basis (46 per cent).
However, although the report highlights the fact training and development can have significant benefits, such as increased staff motivation and retention, only a third (34 per cent) of employers have a formal training strategy. The report, which was compiled using responses from 1,189 training and recruitment decision makers, reveals over three-quarters of employers (78 per cent) see skills development as more beneficial to their organisation compared with recruiting staff externally.
"With training budgets arguably among the first to go in a recession, this research demonstrates that growing your own is an effective way for organisations to obtain the skills they need while saving money."
"The business case for developing staff is compelling. Effective training can reduce staff turnover and absenteeism, improve motivation, increase productivity, help boost and improve customer satisfaction. By focusing resources on nurturing existing talent, organisations can ensure they reap significant rewards."
Jobs growth in the computing and service sector will be particularly strong, while an increase in opportunities is also expected in the distribution and transport sectors. The 2012 Olympics is expected to create up to 170,000 jobs in the long term, according to the report.
Skills secretary John Denham welcomed the findings.
"In the short term we are making sure that people who lose their jobs have access to the real help they need. But we must not lose sight of the future needs of our economy and do all we can to help people get the secure career jobs they want and need in the industries where growth will be the strongest in the coming years," he said.
Denham added that the government was working to "reform the skills system" to help bring together employers, training providers and unions to tackle any job shortages.
The report came as a new economic forecast predicted that unemployment will rise to 3.25 million by the end of 2010.
Ahead of the publication of official figures later this week, the Ernst & Young ITEM Club forecast that the next year will see the largest contraction of GDP since 1946. It also warned that without additional government intervention a deep recession could evolve into a depression.
Businesses risking time, money and lawsuits on bad interviews
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Date: 16/02/2009
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Job interviewers are risking landing their organisation in legal hot water, according to research out today. On average, around half (54%) of UK interviewers are unable to correctly identify illegal questions, yet staying the right side of the law scores low on their list of concerns.
In addition, those who rely on their intuition make hiring decisions could be wasting their organisations thousands in costs and time by selecting the wrong person for the job. Almost half of all interviewers globally (47%) spend less than 30 minutes reviewing candidates' interview results before making a decision - less time than it takes the average Briton to commute to work.
Business leadership consultancy DDI's 2008 Global Interviewing Practices and Perceptions report surveyed 1,900 interviewers and 3,500 job-seekers across the globe and discovered some sobering facts.
Despite being a requirement for nearly every job in the world, the interview process isn't given the time it needs. Interviewers frequently come unprepared for discussion or turn candidates off with their behaviour.
Steve Newhall, Vice President for Europe at DDI, comments;
"Job interviews are simply not being given the time and effort they deserve, and could be opening up businesses to costly legal problems. The average interviewer is far more confident about their abilities than the research shows they should be. In the current climate, organisations cannot afford to risk wasting valuable time and money in hiring the wrong person into critical roles."
He continues; "This research underlines the need for organisations to have properly developed assessment and selection processes in place, and a greater awareness of the impact a good or poor hire can have on the organisation."
"Businesses' due diligence when bringing new people into the organisation is often worryingly lax. The rapid time taken to make hiring decisions, the lack of more than one perspective and the fact that interviewers believe they're doing a better job than they really are leads to a dangerous mix."
Despite UK interviewers faring well compared to their global counterparts - they are among the least likely to rely on 'gut instinct' - they are still over-rating their abilities.
Other key findings from the report show that;
88% of interviewers think interviews are 'important' or 'very important' (55%). Yet almost half (47%) make hiring decisions in 30 minutes or less.
Almost three-quarters of interviewers (73%) rate their interviewing skills an A or B, and 87% rate the overall quality of their hiring decisions as A or B.
Yet 64% also worry they'll miss important information about a candidate's weaknesses that will show up later on the job, and many cannot identify illegal questions.
Interviewers' other concerns are getting enough information to make a decision (46%) and allowing one aspect of background to influence others.
UK interviewers are among the least likely to use 'gut instinct', with only 32% saying they use this to make decisions. In comparison, 56% of their US counterparts claim to rely on this.
Job-seekers reported that their top 'turn offs' during job interviews were interview techniques that were more like interrogations (43%), taking too long to get back to them (42%) and not being up-front about details like salary, hours and expectations (39%).
Interviewers in Australia, France, and Germany appear to be the least aware illegal interview questions, with 60% unable to correctly identify them. But even in high-profile lawsuit locations such as the US and Canada, 20-40% of interviewers are still unable to recognise illegal questions.
£1m publicity campaign to make sure agency workers get their rights
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Date: 11/02/2009
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The government has launched a £1m campaign to help employment agencies understand the law about their workers.
The campaign will also use posters, the internet and local press to encourage workers to be aware of their rights.
Business Minister Pat McFadden will write to more than 13,000 employment agencies to outline how they can make sure they are complying with the law.
The government is responding to union concerns that agency workers are being cheated of their rights.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Of course most agencies act within the law, but some agency workers miss out on the most basic employment rights, and are among the most vulnerable in the whole workforce."
"This is why we welcome the government's plans to make sure agency workers know their rights and to ensure more effective enforcement of their rights."
Minister for employment relations Pat McFadden said: "Employment agencies need to make sure they play by the rules and don't short-change their staff."
"An economic downturn should not be an excuse to deny people their rights to work."
"This campaign will help agency workers know their rights and help employers know their responsibilities."
Katja Hall, director of employment policy at the CBI, welcomed the government campaign.
"Increasing people's knowledge is an important first step in ensuring that workers access the rights to which they are entitled," she said.
In April 2008, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2007 came into force, partly to protect agency workers.
Meanwhile in October the Agency Workers Directive was passed by the European Parliament, giving temporary workers in the UK equal rights to permanent staff after 12 weeks with an employer.
Supermarket expansion plans are good news for customer service professionals
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Date: 06/02/2009
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The creation of over 30,000 new jobs across the major UK supermarket groups is good news for people with professional customer service skills, according to the Institute of Customer Service.
"People with proven customer service skills will be well placed to take advantage of these new opportunities as their skills are completely transferable," said David Parsons, chief executive of the Institute.
His comments come as Asda became the latest of the UK food retailers to announce the new jobs, adding to similar plans from Morrisons, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose and frozen food chain Iceland.
"The retail food sector is holding up well in the current economic climate, perhaps because people are eating at home rather than going out," said David. "And while the cost of the weekly shopping basket is important in the current climate, for many customers it is not just about price but also about the overall experience. This is where the skills of customer-facing staff will be the defining factor."
The Institute has been the driver for the development of the National Occupational Standards for customer service and the qualifications based on them. It offers its own ICS Professional Awards and helps members to further develop their careers through its continuous professional development programme. Opportunities to gain professional customer service qualifications continue to expand.
"The Government has announced a further 35,000 apprenticeship places for the coming year and it is a fact that customer service apprenticeships are among the most widely used of these qualifications in the UK," added David.
Today the Low Pay Commission has delayed making its recommendation to Government, for two months. The Commission would like more time to consider the current economic outlook.
Last month, the BCC urged the Low Pay Commission to recommend maintaining the National Minimum Wage (NMW) at its current level next year and until economic conditions have significantly improved.
The BCC calculated that another increase in NMW, at the same amount as in 2008, would cost businesses £300 million.
The BCC argued that hard-pressed businesses will be unable to afford a wage increase anywhere near that sum, and as a result, a zero per cent rise in the NMW should be adopted next year.
The business group is stressing that any increase above zero per cent risks adding to unemployment, which the BCC has already forecast to reach 3.1 million by 2010.
Commenting, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, said: "We're not opposed to the minimum wage going up when employment is high and the economy is doing well, but when jobs are being lost daily and a recession is in full swing, it makes no sense to increase the NMW."
"Most businesses are prioritising survival at the moment. A rise in minimum wage would not help firms hold onto staff and would simply add to unemployment. We continue to urge the Low Pay Commission to recommend a freeze."
Where are online job seekers looking for their next position?
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Date: 21/01/2009
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According to Hitwise UK, the internet intelligence organisation, market share of job seeker traffic for January 2009 across the top 'job sites' was as follows (previous year's figures in brackets):
Job Centre Plus 9.76% (10.34%)
LinkedIn 4.02% (1.97%)
NHS Careers 3.83% (3.55%)
Reed 3.58% (3.20%)
Totaljobs 2.82% (3.50%)
Jobsite UK 2.72% (2.20%)
Monster 2.65% (3.06%)
Guardian Jobs 1.93% (1.69%)
TES Jobs 1.77% (2.23%)
Meanwhile, New Media Age is reporting that Monster Worldwide has invested $130m (£89m) to relaunch its international sites in a bid to save the brand as the job market dries up. The global rollout, which takes in the company's 24 international sites including Monster.co.uk, sees the site introduce a range of interactive tools in a bid to engage active and passive job seekers as the recession bites and fewer jobs are advertised.
Monster aims to position the brand as the trusted recruitment site and is betting its future on Web 2.0 tools, such as a career-mapping tool letting users follow the careers of similar people, and a career benchmark so they can measure themselves against other individuals.
The global move coincides with activity by publisher Trinity Mirror, which has relaunched its regional recruitment platform. It plans to reinvigorate the network during the economic downturn with mini-sites, enhanced recruiter branding, keyword sponsorship and a database of CVs.
The moves aim to shore up the brands ahead of troubled times as advertised positions decline sharply and job sites struggle to gain users.
The employment category recorded a 3.8% decrease in traffic on previous years for the week ending 3 January, according to Hitwise UK. However, it did see a seasonal 11.6% increase in the same week caused by anxious users keen to investigate the state of the market.
Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK, said, "Last week traffic was down 3.8% on the equivalent week last year. It looks like the unseasonable autumn increase has been replaced by a dip in traffic as the realities of the credit crunch hit home. There's less incentive to go to a job site if there aren't as many jobs being advertised."
Totaljobs.com, the UK's fifth-largest recruitment site, said the sector had already experienced sharp decreases in volumes in November and December. Marketing director Michael Robinson said, "The next two to three weeks will be key."
However, Mark Rhodes, head of marketing at Reed.co.uk, claimed declining job listings weren't deterring online job seekers. "Already in 2009 we've seen our busiest day ever, with more 75,000 applications being made on 5 January," he said. "Recruiters will increasingly look to post their jobs on sites that can guarantee a return on their spend, while the relevance and quality of applicants will assume greater importance than ever. Recruitment sites that can't deliver the right candidates in a cost-effective and timely manner will disappear."
According to Hitwise UK, business social network LinkedIn, which falls into the recruitment category, has seen an 81.1% rise in traffic in the last 12 months, taking it from eighth-to second-largest audience.
Europe MD Kevin Ayres said the site's networking tools were a key reason for its accelerating growth. "It's times like these, with a dynamic market, that we want to make sure our decisions are correct, so people use our network," he said.
But Rhodes argued the economic uncertainty will drive people away from social media sites in favour of traditional job listings. "Job seekers are looking for an efficient, functional site that delivers them well-matched jobs quickly," he said. "Additional services may be valuable but they're unlikely to be deciding factors when selecting a job site."
Almost 40% of employers will increase business support headcount says new report
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Date: 13/01/2009
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Over half of employers will keep their permanent hiring of business support professionals at the same level and 39% will increase headcount during 2009. That's according to the 2009 market report and salary survey just released by secretarial and business support recruiter Crone Corkill.
Additionally, while general market data is predicting a downturn in temporary hiring overall, the report says that evolving legislative changes around flexible working practices will continue to impact on hiring demand. "Maternity leave, for example, is often a big driver of temporary demand," says Tracy Durrant, Managing Director of Crone Corkill, "And with maternity and paternity leave rights becoming more generous, we would expect this to be a continuing trend throughout 2009."
Other key findings from the report which surveyed employers across the commerce, industry, financial services and not for profit sectors included:
Languages in high demand as organisations become more internationally focused.
An emerging trend towards the Team PA driven by challenging market conditions.
A trend towards longer term temporary contracts.
Legal Secretaries now much more involved in client facing duties such as events and marketing.
Over 20% of employers reported a shortage of receptionists and top level Executive Assistants.
15% of employers said that they had plans to increase recruitment from overseas during 2009.
The Government has announced plans to pay employers up to £2,500 for every unemployed person they recruit and train, as part of measures to safeguard jobs during the recession.
The incentives were announced following the government's job summit, which the CIPD, among others, attended to give advice on how to deal with increasing unemployment, which now stands at 1.8 million. Last week computer manufacturer Dell announced the loss of 1,900 jobs in Ireland, and Marks and Spencer said 1,200 jobs were being cut in the UK.
Work and Pensions minister James Purnell said: "There are still over half a million jobs available, and employers are still recruiting - we will do everything we can get people into those jobs. Our message is simple, the longer a person is out of work the harder we will work for them."
Meanwhile, the Federation of Small Businesses has launched a blueprint for tackling rising unemployment with a plan to create 400,000 new jobs by promoting part-time working, investing in apprenticeships and giving small business more opportunities to bid for public contracts. John Wright, national chairman, said: "We are calling for the government to help small businesses to continue to invest in recruitment and training so they can grow stronger and more competitive, creating quality jobs and doing their bit to pull the UK out of the recession as quickly as possible."
UK jobs market getting tougher by the month, says Hays
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Date: 09/01/2009
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Recruitment company Hays has warned that "every month is getting harder than the last" for the job market, with a significant slowdown not just in the property and finance sectors but also IT, human resources and legal.
Hays revealed a 22pc fall in revenue from UK recruitment in the fourth quarter, as demand for permanent positions continues to fall at an increasing rate. Across its international business, revenue tumbled 10pc on weak performance in the UK, Australia and Asia.
Finance director Paul Venables said it is unlikely that the market will recover any time in 2009, with the company expecting a decline in profits when it reports.
He warned that the employment market is "tough and will get tougher" even though the majority of sectors have already been hit by companies scaling back their staff, including Hays itself.
"Right now, you want to be a credit controller, or a project manager working on the Olympics," Mr Venables said. "Only six months ago I could have given more areas that were strong than were weak, but that's not the case now."
Another 10pc of the workforce, a total of 500 positions, was cut at Hays this quarter, taking the total job losses to 20pc of global staff this year.
However, temporary recruitment grew 4pc in the quarter as employers turned to short-term workers to cover their staffing needs.
There was also growth of 10pc from public sector clients, particularly in the healthcare, social housing and education areas, as the Government became the UK's biggest advertiser for the first time since 2001.
Rival recruitment company Michael Page also reported a slowdown, with fourth quarter profits falling 7pc to £119m and full-year pre-tax profits down 5pc to £140m.
"Market conditions became noticeably more difficult during the fourth quarter, with many jobs being cancelled or put on hold," said chief executive Steve Ingham.
The company cut 509 jobs, or 9pc of the workforce, in the fourth quarter, as reacted to the "cautionary behavious of clients and candidates" by reducing its costs.
The cost of making an employee redundant can reach £16,375, meaning redundancies should be a last resort for businesses in 2009, according to the CIPD.
This cost does not consider hidden costs such as higher labour turnover and falls in staff productivity.
John Philpott, CIPD chief economist, said the estimate was likely to be conservative, and provides a hard business case why redundancies should be the last resort during the downturn.
"Businesses are under huge pressure right now and restructuring is a fact of economic life that can never be ruled out," he added. "But redundancy is itself a significant cost to most organisations, with a number of direct and indirect or hidden costs. This is particularly true if redundancies are an employer's first resort in difficult times and have to be quickly reversed by renewed hiring when economic conditions improve."
The institute has created a formula for employers to realise the genuine cost of redundancy on their business.
Philpott added: "The formula shows how redundancies can impede quick recovery from the downturn. This doesn't mean that restructuring can't take place, but it should be with a view to the long-term and not to short-term cost cutting."
"Employers should hold their nerve and focus on retaining talent and investing in the skills of their people. It is these people with their commitment, productivity and ability to add value who will ultimately keep individual businesses and the whole of the UK competitive, and put us in a strong position to recover from the downturn quickly."
iProfile predicts 7 January will be busiest day for job hunting
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Date: 07/01/2009
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Online CV expert iProfile.org predicts 7 January will be one of the busiest days of the year for sending out CVs and applying for jobs, as job-seekers all over the UK put the Christmas festivities behind them, and send their CVs out to recruiters.
More than 2.7 million people in the UK have an online CV through iProfile.org, giving the company a unique insight into when most job-hunting activity takes place.
Rick Bacon, CEO of iProfile.org comments: "January is always a hectic time in the recruitment market, as many people reflect on their career over the Christmas period, even making finding a new job their New Year's resolution, and then start job-hunting in the first week back at work. In 2008, January 10th was when we saw the largest volumes of CVs updated and sent to recruiters. In 2009, we expect to see an even bigger upsurge around this time. In fact we're expecting record volumes of CVs due to the large number of people who have been made redundant in the last few months, but have delayed looking for a new job until after Christmas."
One employment lawyer has estimated that 60 percent of people who were made redundant in the latter part of last year have put off their job search until after Christmas. This compares to just 10 percent for the same time period in 2007.
This upsurge, combined with statistics from iProfile.org's database that show Wednesday is the busiest day for people sending out their CV, means iProfile has identified January 7 as the busiest day for sending out CVs post Christmas for 2009.
"There are a number of things savvy job-seekers can do to give themselves a competitive edge in this busy period," comments Rick Bacon, CEO of iProfile.org. "For example, in the current marketplace, it's important to look at your skills as well as your achievements and experience, to see which of your skills you can transfer to an industry that might be experiencing or predicting job growth."
Bacon concludes: "Getting your CV and achievements together shouldn't just be for those who are actively looking for jobs either. If you do get made redundant you're unlikely to get much warning - it's a good idea to be prepared and get all the information you need for a great CV. Quite often you won't be allowed back to collect the evidence of your achievements, such as sales figures, or how you managed an award winning campaign."
