Friday Focus -- Current trends in recruitment
It may surprise some readers that, on the whole, recruitment agencies have had their busiest month in many years so things are certainly getting better, but they are still not up to the levels of activity we saw in 2008
It is true that when recruitment in the shipping industry goes quiet, then the whole recruitment industry follows shortly after. Shipping and freight forwarding recruitment has always been the barometer of the country’s economy: if no one is buying goods then freight movement drops and circulation of money within the economy slows. Thereafter, the effects ripple out to the rest of the economy.
Some sectors are further away and take longer to feel the ripple, but there is no doubt in my mind that it filters through to all sectors in time.
Having had quite a rollercoaster ride over the past three years, the stats are very interesting. In recruitment terms, 2010 has been busy, but it is still 37% down in terms of vacancies than in 2008 – indicating a trend that freight forwarders have not completely recovered.
Having just undertaken a market survey, we found that talk of a double recession was in managers’ minds when deciding whether to make that next hire. Many companies are up-skilling their current work or redeploying staff in different roles within the company, which not only saves losing valuable resources – a long serving member of staff – but also has a feelgood factor for the rest of the workforce. Where, in the first wave of the credit crunch there was a mass of redundancies, and then another wave six months later, redundancies have now has slowed down.
Many companies have undertaken their restructuring and they are either still in business or have sold out or gone bust. Where candidates were unwilling to move jobs in such uncertain times, they are now putting their heads above the parapet to see what opportunities are out there.
In response, some companies have come up with innovative ways of keeping their workforce on-side. Interestingly enough, people rarely become dissatisfied about money. The main motivators for seeking other opportunities are not being appreciated and a lack of career opportunities. In our survey, we found companies have introduced initiatives that bear little cost to the bottom line, such as to more one-to-ones, diversification of roles (for example, multi-skilling) and hiring from within as a first resort, to name but a few. Some companies have initiated inexpensive social events and sporting initiatives to keep team morale up.
Clients were definitely in two categories in 2009: those that were battening down the hatches and predicting mass bankruptcies, and those that decided to be bullish and attack the market. This was spread across all the clients and not just the shipping industry. Those that were the “hunters”, and were aggressively attacking the market for new business, did seem to steal a march on those who had decided that mothballing all sales activities was a safer strategy.
This, in turn, had knock-on effects on recruitment both in 2009 and 2010. One of those effects was that some clients had diversified into markets they did not normally enter. This applies to all sectors we have been dealing with. Margins were squeezed when more competitors entered specialist markets or fields which they had previously steered clear of. The effect on recruitment has been that the need for multi-skilled staff has become greater.
There have been other subtle changes – clients, new and old, have a greater understanding and acceptance of outsourcing. Does this then mean that companies that are willing and able to embrace alternative revenue streams can survive and, indeed, prosper? It would appear so, from our recruitment view of the industry. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution, the fittest have not only survived but have, in fact, grown stronger from the their experiences of the crash.
Caroline Frostick, FREC, Red Group of Companies www.redrecruit.com
Some sectors are further away and take longer to feel the ripple, but there is no doubt in my mind that it filters through to all sectors in time.
Having had quite a rollercoaster ride over the past three years, the stats are very interesting. In recruitment terms, 2010 has been busy, but it is still 37% down in terms of vacancies than in 2008 – indicating a trend that freight forwarders have not completely recovered.
Having just undertaken a market survey, we found that talk of a double recession was in managers’ minds when deciding whether to make that next hire. Many companies are up-skilling their current work or redeploying staff in different roles within the company, which not only saves losing valuable resources – a long serving member of staff – but also has a feelgood factor for the rest of the workforce. Where, in the first wave of the credit crunch there was a mass of redundancies, and then another wave six months later, redundancies have now has slowed down.
Many companies have undertaken their restructuring and they are either still in business or have sold out or gone bust. Where candidates were unwilling to move jobs in such uncertain times, they are now putting their heads above the parapet to see what opportunities are out there.
In response, some companies have come up with innovative ways of keeping their workforce on-side. Interestingly enough, people rarely become dissatisfied about money. The main motivators for seeking other opportunities are not being appreciated and a lack of career opportunities. In our survey, we found companies have introduced initiatives that bear little cost to the bottom line, such as to more one-to-ones, diversification of roles (for example, multi-skilling) and hiring from within as a first resort, to name but a few. Some companies have initiated inexpensive social events and sporting initiatives to keep team morale up.
Clients were definitely in two categories in 2009: those that were battening down the hatches and predicting mass bankruptcies, and those that decided to be bullish and attack the market. This was spread across all the clients and not just the shipping industry. Those that were the “hunters”, and were aggressively attacking the market for new business, did seem to steal a march on those who had decided that mothballing all sales activities was a safer strategy.
This, in turn, had knock-on effects on recruitment both in 2009 and 2010. One of those effects was that some clients had diversified into markets they did not normally enter. This applies to all sectors we have been dealing with. Margins were squeezed when more competitors entered specialist markets or fields which they had previously steered clear of. The effect on recruitment has been that the need for multi-skilled staff has become greater.
There have been other subtle changes – clients, new and old, have a greater understanding and acceptance of outsourcing. Does this then mean that companies that are willing and able to embrace alternative revenue streams can survive and, indeed, prosper? It would appear so, from our recruitment view of the industry. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution, the fittest have not only survived but have, in fact, grown stronger from the their experiences of the crash.
Caroline Frostick, FREC, Red Group of Companies www.redrecruit.com
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