By Tony Hall, Managing Director, Navigator Consulting
Great recruiters who bill well and stay for many years are now rare as hen’s teeth. They are unlikely to move from a profitable and happy desk which they probably built themselves over considerable time. Next step for them is promotion into a director role or starting their own business so they can enjoy a higher percentage of the fruits of their labour.
Industry demand for recruitment consultants is huge, with over 1958 jobs currently advertised on Seek. Every agency is after the perfect recruiter who is good at selling, admin, resourcing and recruiting. Furthermore, they must be resilient, persistent, communicate well and bring a network with them and of course fit your current team culture.
It seems absurd that any one person has all these attributes – yet that is what many recruitment firms are still looking for – hen’s teeth. Firms insist the people they hire have all of the above and bill 3-4 times their salary in the first year. Again – impossible. The only source of experienced consultant supply is from industry staff turnover which continues to push 50% due to a suspected combination of poor hiring, training and development. It is time to think differently about business growth and look at alternative strategies for bringing on new talent.
Solution #1 – Break up the highly complex recruitment process into admin, resourcing, recruitment and sales as it is much easier to find people good at one (not all) of these activities. They can be sourced from within or outside the recruitment industry. A quality recruitment process will have around 50 steps which requires specialist expertise at each stage. It is unique to the recruitment industry in Europe/Australasia that we persist with the 360 model of trying to find consultants who can sell, resource and perform accurate admin despite the proven benefits of the US model which separates sales, recruitment and admin processes.
Solution #2 – Offshore low-level admin and sourcing tasks to save money and free up your senior staff to spend more time in front of clients and candidates where the real action (and revenue) happens. Our clients who have taken on experienced offshore resourcers have benefited from considerable improvements in client, candidate and staff satisfaction with the added bonus of significant cost reductions and revenue increases.
Solution #3 – Free up your senior managers to spend much more time in front of clients and candidates. They are much more credible and will find the sales process easier and faster. Forcing inexperienced, junior recruiters to cold call or visit clients can actually damage brand and industry reputation if they are not well trained, knowledgably or have specialist networks. Senior decision makers will always buy more from other senior decision makers and often find it insulting if a poorly trained junior is sent in their place. Also, your senior managers are paid way too much to be stuck in the office running unproductive meetings or administration tasks. Get them out generating revenue and building your brand instead – the return on investment will be so much higher.
Solution #4 – Appoint your managing director as chief sales officer. He or she will find it easier to secure meetings, easier to close complex sales and will be revered by the team for bringing in large pieces of new business. Great recruiters who are not suited to sales will be happy to fill these new roles and are more likely to stay longer and enjoy higher job satisfaction if they are not forced to do activities they are not good at. It makes no sense for a MD or CEO earning big money to be stuck in the office day in day out performing low level admin tasks and pointless meetings. The real money (and fun) happens out in the market in front of senior prospects, clients and candidates. This additional sales activity will translate to pure profit small, medium or large companies alike.
Solution #5 Hire biller leaders instead of unproven consultants – I believe you will receive a much bigger return on investment with lower risk by hiring proven leaders who can quickly attract clients and staff rather than unproven recruiters with a limited network and track record of success. Leaders with 6 years or more experience are much more likely to grow the business and cover their costs faster.
Solution #6 Develop a graduate program. Here is your chance to shape your own high performing recruiters before they develop bad habits and dangerous short-cuts. It does take time to break-even on a graduate, but time flies and before you know it your best graduates are building and running their own teams. Graduates will require a strong training program and well mapped-out career plan. With such a shortage of recruiters this is an important strategy to mentor and grow your own talent.
Solution #7 – Regularly train the skills you require of great recruiters. Even the most experienced consultants will fall into bad habits and need refresher training. Inclusive training brings your team together, sharpens their skills and allows senior people to help pass on knowledge to rising stars. One of the biggest recruitment company turnarounds I worked on was hugely successful almost solely due to the implementation of a well-run weekly interactive team training session.
Solution #8 Attend a big conference in the US. You will pick up so many new ideas and techniques from recruiters in the highly competitive US market. They are famous for owning their specialties, building very close relationships with their local communities and using a sales driven account management approach to secure new business and grow existing customer bases. For over 10 years the Americans have also perfected offshore resourcing in India and particularly the Philippines. There is a massive well educated and trained recruitment resourcing market in Manilla keen to move out of the US night shift to work for Australian companies in a similar time zone.
Solution #9 Stop micro managing and start quarterly goal setting and planning. Sit with your people, determine their strengths and weaknesses and make sure you are not forcing them to perform tasks they hate and/or are not good at. Instead of confronting old-school performance appraisals, consider individual quarterly business plans that clearly define goals, targets and activities required for success. Staff will own this plan if they feel involved in mutually setting goals and will work harder to achieve results if they feel supported and listened to. Set simple activity targets that will eventually lead to a placement every week – for example 4 unique client/candidate interviews. Nobody likes micro-management (MM), yet many firms still persist in this activity as a misguided form of risk management which counter-actively results in staff dissatisfaction, turnover and poor employee attraction when MM word gets around.
Solution #10 Support the great people you already have. Most managers end up spending all their time trying to turn around under-performers then are shocked when one of their best people resigns. Contrary to instinct, managers must spend most of their time supporting their best performers who are a big loss if they leave and are much more likely to increase performance year on year than the marginal low performers who typically shout out for more attention and cause everyone the most grief.
Solution #11 Establish a commission/bonus plan that is simple, regularly celebrate and reward people who make an additional effort to do more than the job they are paid a salary for. Pay incentives for new business, innovation, efficiencies, cost savings or activities that are over and above what is required by an average performer – even for junior support staff. Avoid over or double paying incentives for work brought in by senior managers or sales people and then filled by non-client facing staff. Incentives should be paid for extra effort and contributions to the over-all business.
Solution #12 Consider part-time and work from home options for proven performers. Experienced high billing recruiters are so hard to find that it is worth providing flexible work alternatives so long as they are productive, have agreed goals and don’t disproportionately draw on company resources. Several recruitment firms have built highly profitable businesses around experienced part-time working mothers job sharing.
For more ideas on business growth advisory, recruitment industry staffing solutions, remuneration structures, offshore resourcing or business and performance planning please make contact anytime.
Tony Hall, Managing Director, Navigator Consulting, E: th@navigatorconsult.com
Legal Pitfalls
Better Practice, Improve PerformanceFrom Shortlist reporting on Captain’s Table – 5 Legal Pitfalls
Inadequate and inarticulate terms of business are the chief source of disputes and disagreements with clients, according to a legal advisor.
It may “seem pretty basic”, but the actual terms of business – what recruiters do and get paid for – are not articulated very well to employers, says Corvus Group director and former Adecco general counsel Martin Richardson.
Part of the problem is that organisations outsource not only the writing of their business terms, but also the understanding, he told a recent Navigator Consulting Captains Table www.navigatorconsult.com
“Where did your terms of business come from, did you borrow them? That’s OK, but do you actually understand them?”
Instead of being “overawed by a legal document”, Richardson suggests creating Q&A-style documents for recruiters and clients, to ensure all parties understand the terms.
Terms of business should include robust clauses around the following:
* What services are being provided – and how well is this articulated to clients about “what it is you get paid to do, and what it is your contractor is delivering onsite”?
* Introductions and fees – How long is an introduction period? Is there a period of exclusivity? What is an introduction? What is an engagement? What are the client obligations?
* Replacement policies – Are timeframes clear? What events give rise to a replacement, eg is it just termination? Are exemption terms and credit notes clear?
* What costs are passed on to the client? And how are these passed on?
* Supervising and managing contractors – when it comes to contractor performance and management, is it clear who controls the relationship?
* Replacing contractors – What do terms say about passing through notice periods?
* Safety – Are the obligations of both recruiter and client clear?
* Who is liable for the acts and omissions of contractors? Richardson asks, “if you are not supervising and controlling your contractors, then should you be accepting liability, just because they’re your employee – does your margin cover that?”.
* Non-poaching clauses – Is there an inclusion in the terms excluding poaching of client employees? He doesn’t recommend including these clauses: “I wouldn’t do it; your business is recruitment.”
* Payment terms, including passing on interest and debt recovery costs – “More often than not, I see permanent invoices on commencement of employment. I don’t know why you do that… Why would you wait that long?” Instead, Richardson recommends payment terms that start when the candidate is supplied, and if they don’t work out, it is covered by the replacement policy.
He also suggests developing clear strategies around recovering bad debts, including a process with timeframes, scripts and templates, training staff on how to act on overdues, and knowing the “walkaway position”.
Importantly, contract terms cannot be introduced after commencing the transaction, Richards advises, recalling the case of a recruiter who sent a candidate’s details to a law firm, unsolicited, with the terms of business attached in a separate email.
“The law firm gladly took the candidate, on a six-figure salary, and in turn said ‘we’re not paying the fee because we didn’t agree to the terms’.”
That recruitment company took the dispute to court, where it was ruled in the client’s favour.
10 questions help determine health of recruitment businesses
Cost savings, Improve Performance, Leadership, Motivation, Recruitment, Recruitment Best Practice, SalesAn industry advisor has developed a new checklist to help agency leaders assess their business’s performance and highlight early warning signs of distress.
From Shortlist March 2019
Navigator Consulting MD Tony Hall created the 10-question survey to help leaders identify specific areas where there is room for improvement, and recognise potential problems early.
With sustained economic growth resulting in profitable performances for many recruitment agencies, now is not the time to be complacent, he warns.
“A lot of people think their recruitment company is doing really well, so I really thought about the 10 most important questions owners should be asking themselves to really benchmark whether the business has potential for improvement and as a reality check to whether it is performing well,” Hall explains.
Questions agency leaders are asked to consider include:
Is your gross profit/net profit margin greater than 25%?
Is staff turnover less than 10% per year?
Are your average debtor days owing less than 35 days?
Is not more than 15% of your net revenue or billings from a single client?
Hall says recruitment agency owners and managers doing the survey should consider 80% a “pass mark” to feel comfortable and start developing strategies around improving weaknesses in the business identified by the survey results. Anything less than 80% calls for a serious assessment of the business.
“Profit margin needs to be greater than 25% to be a high-performing recruitment business,” he explains.
“And staff turnover, some people think it’s acceptable for 40% staff turnover because they are still doing well financially, but that’s actually not acceptable for so many reasons.
“The last [question] is a psychological one, which people don’t think about as much: does your business keep you up at night? Do you worry about all the things you have to do, the problems you have, the staff issues, the cashflow problems?” he says.
“If that’s happening, then there is some psychological support that’s required too.”
Hall, who has 20 years’ experience consulting to the recruitment sector, admits not everyone will feel comfortable to honestly assess their business.
“I think some people will be too scared to do [the survey], and some people might go through it and then not identify themselves because they are too embarrassed,” he says. “But I say just do it because it could be an eye opener and it could dramatically improve your business [with] just a couple of tweaks.”
At a recent Captain’s Table event, Hall asked attendees if they had a business plan. Of the 25 or so people in the room, just one hand was raised.
“A lot of people are doing kind of well and they are not in ‘business improvement mode’ right now,” he says.
However, he adds that now is the perfect time to build a solid foundation to sustain a recruitment business through any potential economic lows.
“I think it’s a really good time to get some strong financial reporting in place now so that if the market does change, you have plenty of warning and you can adjust accordingly,” Hall says. “What can happen, is if you don’t have good financial reporting in place and the market changes, by the time you realise there is a problem, you are six or seven months down the track and it takes longer to adjust.
“So it’s a good time to get good financial discipline into a recruitment business I believe. Budgeting, cashflow are the very basics. Almost no-one does cashflow statements but they are critical because if there is a downturn and you have a lot of debtors, and your clients stop paying you, you run out of money.”
The survey was built during the development of Navigator’s new Recruitment Business Accelerator Program, which covers 10 topics, he says.
Access the 10 questions here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z38L7GQ
Technology hype blinds leaders to marketing ROI
Better Practice, Improve Performance, marketing, Recruitment Best PracticeTechnology hype blinds leaders to marketing ROI
Recruitment leaders are wasting too much money and effort on marketing that doesn’t align with their business fundamentals, often blindly following trends that deliver little or no return on investment, according to an industry advisor.
“Technology is a really easy way to get caught up in a [marketing] hype cycle,” Navigator Consulting director of marketing and research Matt Fink told a recent Captain’s Table event.
“Marketers use the same tactics used to help your business on you,” he says. “It means that we tend to do things that we don’t necessarily apply the same level of due diligence to.”
By way of example, Fink draws on his own experience as head of marketing for a multinational office supplies business, where he took three-to-four months to define and accurately work out the return on investment of a marketing automation platform – during which time he was fielding daily sales calls from providers trying to sell him the latest and greatest platform.
“Blindly falling into those decisions does a number of things. One, we fall for it every time, and two, it distracts us away from the fundamentals,” he says. “You need to have strong fundamentals in your business, and marketing is no different.”
And while marketers are very good at finding the next opportunity, they don’t necessarily look at the things that haven’t worked as well, Fink adds. So when looking into the ‘next big thing’ in marketing tools and technology, he suggests leaders spend as much time looking for what doesn’t work with the technology as what does.
Another mistake agencies make is failing to differentiate their service offering from the rest of the market, particularly through company websites.
“This is the biggest mistake I’ve seen in my time,” Fink says. “There’s a disparity between what you say when you go out and sell and what appears on the website.”
Going further, he says there is often inconsistency between how leaders or owners describe their service offering compared to other people in the business.
“Leads can come from anywhere,” Fink says. “And if somebody in your organisation can’t communicate even the elevator pitch, there’s a missed opportunity.”
Marketing and sales need to be in concert with all parts of the organisation, he adds.
Same same, but different
Fink also sees too many organisations using “cookie cutter” approaches to marketing, which just do not work. “If you want your business to grow, you don’t want to be following exactly what everyone else is doing.”
If organisations take the same approach with marketing for every client and candidate, without taking into account variables around who they are and what makes them unique, this leads to another key marketing faux pas: misalignment.
“This is not just misalignment between marketing and sales,” he says. “It’s also a misalignment in the way in which we execute [work]… from sales through to marketing through to management and leadership through to the support functions of the business.”
When alignment between business functions breaks down, Fink says organisations end up producing marketing material that doesn’t support the sales effort and drive value within a business. It also makes them more susceptible to marketing phases and fads. Instead, he reminds leaders to keep marketing strategies simple, and keep them aligned to the business.
Looking back over his 20-year career, Fink says marketing basics haven’t changed. “Technology’s changed, the way we take it to market has changed and the platforms have changed, but there are still the same fundamentals.”
He says the key marketing fundamentals to consider are:
Matt presented at Navigator Consulting’s recruitment industry leaders forum – Captain’s Table, kindly supported by Job Adder and A Positive.
Are you satisfied at work? 10 Simple questions to determine whether its time for a change.
UncategorizedHaving had a few weeks myself to relax and recharge over the Christmas break, I am filled with energy and excited for another year. I had a wonderful holiday with my family and was enjoying the last few days when I was inundated with phone calls from re-charged clients. The majority however were from senior level leaders who had reflected on their current roles over the break and are now looking for new opportunities.
Many year ago we developed a simple 10 question quiz that we use when we work with recruitment owners and senior leaders. It helps us walk them through an understanding of how satisfied they are in their current role. By understanding the level of satisfaction, we can then determine a set of actions to correct any issues that may be causing it.
There are strong correlations between job dissatisfaction and both mental and physical health. While cause and effect are not always clear – they can be interlinked – this is an alarming trend that seems to be increasing based on the research into organisational behaviour. Having returned from a break full of energy and excitement- we thought we would share this quiz.
Coming back from a holiday or break and feeling unmotivated is a strong sign that something needs to change.
Take a few minutes to answer the questions honestly. Store the answers somewhere. Then think about what is causing all of your ‘Yes’ responses. Are they something that you can change? Can you talk to someone in your business about them?
If you can identify a path of action to correct all the Yes answers – put something in place to change your level of satisfaction. If you answered more Yes than No – I definitely recommend reaching out to a mentor or giving us a call.
Job Satisfaction Quiz
For owners and managers of recruitment firms (Please answer truthfully)
1. I feel stale and uninspired in my current role (Yes/No)
2. I don’t feel challenged (Yes/No)
3. I don’t seem to be learning anything new (Yes/No)
4. I don’t feel my work and ideas are valued (Yes/No)
5. I no longer spring out of bed with excitement about my work (Yes/No)
6. Little things at work are starting to irritate me (Yes/No)
7. I don’t have anyone good at work to mentor or support me (Yes/No)
8. My job is affecting my mental or physical health (Yes/No)
9. The business is declining or going sideways? (Yes/No)
10. I am feeling unmotivated and even a pay rise wont help (Yes/No)
Firstly, the bad news – if you scored more than 6 – Yes answers it is time you made a change
The good news – it is time to find a new job a new role or get some help to re-charge you and your business.
How We Can Help
For 20 years Navigator Consulting has helped recruitment firms grow prosper.
Former EY management consultant and company founder Tony Hall has a huge amount of experience leading, owning managing and growing recruitment firms and can quickly help you improve your job satisfaction or business performance. Tony has written two books and spoken at numerous conferences on recruitment company growth in Australia and overseas.
Next Step – Make Contact ASAP
For a no charge, no obligation and confidential conversation about your next role in the recruitment industry or as an owner – efficient ways to improve your current business and job satisfaction, feel free to make contact anytime.
Tony Hall, Managing Director, Navigator Consulting.
Is The 360 Recruitment Model Broken?
Better Practice, Cost savings, Improve Performance, Leadership, Motivation, Offshore, Offshoring, Outource, Recruitment, Recruitment Best Practice, StaffFrom Shortlist: Thursday 04 October 2018 2:47pm
The 360 model is broken, and has been for some time, says Navigator Consulting MD Tony Hall. “It’s really time to start looking at different options.”
Good 360 recruiters are as rare as hen’s teeth, he says, and he suggests the pressure on recruiters to fit the model is one of the biggest contributors to high staff turnover. “It’s so rare for someone to have all the different skills required to be a high-performing 360 recruitment consultant.”
Agencies are increasingly deconstructing the 360 model, breaking the process into admin, resourcing, recruitment and sales roles, though with varying degrees of success to date, he notes.
Many labour hire companies have been operating in this way for years – “they have business development managers that understand the industry really well… and they might even be from the industry they are selling into, so they’ve got a lot of credibility” – while larger agencies are more likely to succeed with dedicated business development managers, following the US blueprint.
For smaller firms, Hall recommends the most senior people spend their time out in front of clients, and avoid putting junior consultants into “difficult sales situations that are way over their head”.
Small companies should be hiring people into resourcing or account management roles, to start, while senior leaders outsource their resourcing so they are freed up to do the sales part of the 360 process.
(Hall is a big advocate of offshoring, particularly for “very administrative and repetitive tasks”, such as market mapping, database building, database maintenance, and even sourcing. “I think offshoring is one of the success secrets of reducing staff turnover in the recruitment industry,” he says.)
Building the right commission structure
“If there’s no sales responsibility for a recruitment consultant, then their commission structure should be at a lower level than a recruitment consultant that’s required to bring in the business and fill the role as well,” Hall says.
He suggests recruiters on “relatively high wages” are already incentivised to fill jobs. “So you might have more of a bonus structure than a commission structure for people that are not actually selling.”
That said, Hall agrees the 50/50 commission structure adopted by some agencies including Aquent will promote team work – provided leaders monitor placement ratios. “Managing efficiency is really important, because a great salesperson might bring in multiple roles, but if they’re not filled by the recruiter, then the company is paying wages for both… and not getting any return on investment.”
Hall also advises hiring biller leaders with a track record of success (a minimum six years’ experience), rather than looking for potential high performers to train up into sales-focused roles. “Young stars are hard to find,” he says. “[Graduate programs] are so hit and miss.”
It’s certainly unlikely the one graduate will have the 20 or so attributes required of a 360 recruiter, Hall says. “It’s relatively easy to find people that start off their career resourcing, and the good ones can be promoted into… senior recruitment or senior sales streams, or leadership, depending on their attributes.”
Breaking out the recruitment process also provides career progression, which Hall says is sadly lacking in the industry. Then focusing on supporting high performers, rather than underachievers, will keep them performing and encourage them to stay.
Part of this includes regular training, both formal and informal. “Short and regular training can make a massive difference, in terms of business profitability and reduced staff turnover.”
He suggests regular weekly sessions, even for 30 minutes, will bring the team together, foster communication, and upskill even the most seasoned recruiter. “It’s an absolute critical success factor.”
Hall is facilitating discussions on the “obsolete” 360 model, and its alternatives, at upcoming Captain’s Table events in Melbourne (30 October) and Sydney (31 October) for agency owners and leaders.
Recruitment Leaders Falling Short In Key Planning Areas
Better Practice, Improve Performance, Leadership, Recruitment, Recruitment Best Practice, RIBCIXFrom Shortlist 30 August 2018
Recruitment agency leaders are meticulous around developing budgets and financial plans, as well as measuring consultant activity, but more work is needed to improve performance across all areas of the business, new research shows.
The Recruitment Industry Business Confidence Index survey (RIBCIX), run by Navigator Consulting MD Tony Hall, reveals many leaders are falling short in implementing marketing, quality assurance, exit strategy and operations plans.
Source: Navigator Consulting
The RIBCIX survey is still collecting data for the current half-year, and recruitment companies are invited to participate here to receive the full report.
360 Recruiter Model Is Broken (And 12 Solutions To Fix It)
Better Practice, Cost savings, Leadership, Offshore, Outource, Recruitment, Recruitment Best PracticeBy Tony Hall, Managing Director, Navigator Consulting
Great recruiters who bill well and stay for many years are now rare as hen’s teeth. They are unlikely to move from a profitable and happy desk which they probably built themselves over considerable time. Next step for them is promotion into a director role or starting their own business so they can enjoy a higher percentage of the fruits of their labour.
Industry demand for recruitment consultants is huge, with over 1958 jobs currently advertised on Seek. Every agency is after the perfect recruiter who is good at selling, admin, resourcing and recruiting. Furthermore, they must be resilient, persistent, communicate well and bring a network with them and of course fit your current team culture.
It seems absurd that any one person has all these attributes – yet that is what many recruitment firms are still looking for – hen’s teeth. Firms insist the people they hire have all of the above and bill 3-4 times their salary in the first year. Again – impossible. The only source of experienced consultant supply is from industry staff turnover which continues to push 50% due to a suspected combination of poor hiring, training and development. It is time to think differently about business growth and look at alternative strategies for bringing on new talent.
Solution #1 – Break up the highly complex recruitment process into admin, resourcing, recruitment and sales as it is much easier to find people good at one (not all) of these activities. They can be sourced from within or outside the recruitment industry. A quality recruitment process will have around 50 steps which requires specialist expertise at each stage. It is unique to the recruitment industry in Europe/Australasia that we persist with the 360 model of trying to find consultants who can sell, resource and perform accurate admin despite the proven benefits of the US model which separates sales, recruitment and admin processes.
Solution #2 – Offshore low-level admin and sourcing tasks to save money and free up your senior staff to spend more time in front of clients and candidates where the real action (and revenue) happens. Our clients who have taken on experienced offshore resourcers have benefited from considerable improvements in client, candidate and staff satisfaction with the added bonus of significant cost reductions and revenue increases.
Solution #3 – Free up your senior managers to spend much more time in front of clients and candidates. They are much more credible and will find the sales process easier and faster. Forcing inexperienced, junior recruiters to cold call or visit clients can actually damage brand and industry reputation if they are not well trained, knowledgably or have specialist networks. Senior decision makers will always buy more from other senior decision makers and often find it insulting if a poorly trained junior is sent in their place. Also, your senior managers are paid way too much to be stuck in the office running unproductive meetings or administration tasks. Get them out generating revenue and building your brand instead – the return on investment will be so much higher.
Solution #4 – Appoint your managing director as chief sales officer. He or she will find it easier to secure meetings, easier to close complex sales and will be revered by the team for bringing in large pieces of new business. Great recruiters who are not suited to sales will be happy to fill these new roles and are more likely to stay longer and enjoy higher job satisfaction if they are not forced to do activities they are not good at. It makes no sense for a MD or CEO earning big money to be stuck in the office day in day out performing low level admin tasks and pointless meetings. The real money (and fun) happens out in the market in front of senior prospects, clients and candidates. This additional sales activity will translate to pure profit small, medium or large companies alike.
Solution #5 Hire biller leaders instead of unproven consultants – I believe you will receive a much bigger return on investment with lower risk by hiring proven leaders who can quickly attract clients and staff rather than unproven recruiters with a limited network and track record of success. Leaders with 6 years or more experience are much more likely to grow the business and cover their costs faster.
Solution #6 Develop a graduate program. Here is your chance to shape your own high performing recruiters before they develop bad habits and dangerous short-cuts. It does take time to break-even on a graduate, but time flies and before you know it your best graduates are building and running their own teams. Graduates will require a strong training program and well mapped-out career plan. With such a shortage of recruiters this is an important strategy to mentor and grow your own talent.
Solution #7 – Regularly train the skills you require of great recruiters. Even the most experienced consultants will fall into bad habits and need refresher training. Inclusive training brings your team together, sharpens their skills and allows senior people to help pass on knowledge to rising stars. One of the biggest recruitment company turnarounds I worked on was hugely successful almost solely due to the implementation of a well-run weekly interactive team training session.
Solution #8 Attend a big conference in the US. You will pick up so many new ideas and techniques from recruiters in the highly competitive US market. They are famous for owning their specialties, building very close relationships with their local communities and using a sales driven account management approach to secure new business and grow existing customer bases. For over 10 years the Americans have also perfected offshore resourcing in India and particularly the Philippines. There is a massive well educated and trained recruitment resourcing market in Manilla keen to move out of the US night shift to work for Australian companies in a similar time zone.
Solution #9 Stop micro managing and start quarterly goal setting and planning. Sit with your people, determine their strengths and weaknesses and make sure you are not forcing them to perform tasks they hate and/or are not good at. Instead of confronting old-school performance appraisals, consider individual quarterly business plans that clearly define goals, targets and activities required for success. Staff will own this plan if they feel involved in mutually setting goals and will work harder to achieve results if they feel supported and listened to. Set simple activity targets that will eventually lead to a placement every week – for example 4 unique client/candidate interviews. Nobody likes micro-management (MM), yet many firms still persist in this activity as a misguided form of risk management which counter-actively results in staff dissatisfaction, turnover and poor employee attraction when MM word gets around.
Solution #10 Support the great people you already have. Most managers end up spending all their time trying to turn around under-performers then are shocked when one of their best people resigns. Contrary to instinct, managers must spend most of their time supporting their best performers who are a big loss if they leave and are much more likely to increase performance year on year than the marginal low performers who typically shout out for more attention and cause everyone the most grief.
Solution #11 Establish a commission/bonus plan that is simple, regularly celebrate and reward people who make an additional effort to do more than the job they are paid a salary for. Pay incentives for new business, innovation, efficiencies, cost savings or activities that are over and above what is required by an average performer – even for junior support staff. Avoid over or double paying incentives for work brought in by senior managers or sales people and then filled by non-client facing staff. Incentives should be paid for extra effort and contributions to the over-all business.
Solution #12 Consider part-time and work from home options for proven performers. Experienced high billing recruiters are so hard to find that it is worth providing flexible work alternatives so long as they are productive, have agreed goals and don’t disproportionately draw on company resources. Several recruitment firms have built highly profitable businesses around experienced part-time working mothers job sharing.
For more ideas on business growth advisory, recruitment industry staffing solutions, remuneration structures, offshore resourcing or business and performance planning please make contact anytime.
Tony Hall, Managing Director, Navigator Consulting, E: th@navigatorconsult.com
Recruitment Leaders Forecasting Massive Growth
Better Practice, Leadership, Recruitment, Recruitment Best Practice, RIBCIXFrom Shortlist, Wednesday 22 August 2018
Agency leadership, Research, analysis & reports
Recruitment leaders across the board are reporting record financial results, with staffing challenges the primary obstacle to realising further growth predictions, new research shows.
Some 76% of agencies expect to grow net revenue (after temp and contractor costs) by at least 10–20% in the December half, compared to June, according to the Recruitment Industry Business Confidence Index survey (RIBCIX), run by Navigator Consulting MD Tony Hall.
Participate in the RIBCIX Survey Here
The RIBCIX survey, based on responses from more than 100 recruitment businesses around Australia so far, shows 66% of companies are forecasting net profit (before tax) growth of 10–20% or more for the quarter.
“Many managing directors I’ve been speaking to have said they’ve had one of the best financial years on record, and therefore it’s no surprise their forecast for the next quarter is going to be quite strong,” says Hall.
About 58% of companies will grow their consulting headcount by 10–20% or more, and 42% intend to increase the size of their resourcing teams by the same amount.
The key challenge these businesses will have is finding and adding staff to manage growing workloads, as a marked shortage of quality recruitment talent persists and, Hall says, “the good people simply won’t move”.
As a result, more recruitment leaders are looking at alternative strategies to hiring from within the industry, such as offshore resourcing and hiring graduates, and an increasing number are hiring professionals from the industries in which they recruit, says Hall.
These latter professionals tend to have deeper knowledge of the industries they’re recruiting for and can communicate “at a much higher level with their clients and candidates, with more credibility”, he adds.
Staff training spend is also increasing, although not quite in line with revenue and staff growth forecasts, with 42% of business leaders saying they will increase their investment in that area by 10–20% or more.
And more than half predict spending more on technology, yet 50% of companies expect no change in operating costs, “which is a little unusual because you would think you’ve got to increase costs and [add] staff, and it takes some time for those new staff to become productive”, Hall says.
Temp and perm forecasts on an even keel
The RIBCIX shows a similar proportion of companies expecting to grow their temp/contracting (58%) and permanent (57%) revenue.
Hall says this is unusual – the market usually favours one or the other – and the main conclusion to draw is simply indicates “very positive market conditions”.
The RIBCIX survey is still collecting data for the current half-year, and recruitment companies are invited to participate here in order to receive the full report.
Participate in the RIBCIX Survey Here
In-house threat growing for agencies
Improve Performance, Leadership, Recruitment, Recruitment Best PracticeFrom Shortlist Wednesday 25 July 2018
The biggest threat to the recruitment industry is the increasing number of employers bringing recruitment in-house, and emerging technology is the additional impetus for making agencies the second option, an industry advisor says.
At a recent Captain’s Table event, chaired by Navigator Consulting CEO Tony Hall, agency leaders gathered to discuss the biggest threats to the industry, and what to do about them.
Several key themes emerged as attendees discussed what the industry should be doing to counteract the growing number of clients that are bringing recruitment functions in-house.
The first step is to build stronger relationships with clients, Hall says, “so we as recruitment agencies are the first port of call, as opposed to the last port of call, when it gets too hard for them”.
Agencies should also be working better together to solve client and candidate requirements, to ensure the industry thrives, he adds. “If we’re not filling roles that we say we can fill, then we’re providing even more ammunition for companies to say ‘we might as well do this ourselves than pay recruitment fees to companies that aren’t delivering’.”
Filling more jobs is absolutely critical in encouraging companies to use agencies more, the leaders agree.
Leveraging technology well enables better recruitment service delivery, Hall says, and points the way to adding more value for clients, “so we can justify the high margins that we would all like to have”.
Transparency builds stronger relationships
Painting a fuller picture of exactly what it is that agencies do and the effort required to fill a role is also vital, as is communicating that effectively to clients, says Hall.
“Are we articulating how much work goes into a recruitment assignment?” he asks.
This should start in client proposal documents that outline all client services at beginning of an assignment, and be reiterated through detailed invoices that provide a list of services involved, line by line. “That’s just absolute gold,” Hall says.
Hall urged recruiters not to send invoices that simply say, “recruitment fee, $35,000”.
Getting out and meeting clients face-to-face to build relationships is the optimal way to get their buy-in.
“I wonder how much consulting we actually do these days, as recruiters,” says JobAdder CEO Brett Iredale. “All day every day we’re walking around recruitment floors, the pods are all full, and everyone is there tapping away and not out talking to people.”
“Recruitment consultants now are relying on email, phone, LinkedIn, whatever, way too much, at the detriment of relationships, perhaps,” Hall adds.
Collaboration is better than competition
A more organised approach to industry collaboration – rather than purely focusing on competition – is more beneficial to recruiters, says Elias Recruitment CEO Jason Elias.
Efforts to win work on an exclusive basis are a better driver of competition than fighting over the same vacancies simultaneously. “It’s great for job boards [but] candidates get confused when we all fight over the same people,” he says.
“As an industry, we shouldn’t be like seagulls going for little chips,” says Elias.
No wonder it is difficult to find quality new staff
Offshoring, Outource, Recruitment, Recruitment Best Practice, Sales, Staff, UncategorizedUnemployment Down – Job Vacancies Up = Staff Shortages
Australia’s unemployment rate is close to a 10 year low of 5.4%. It is often argued we are actually close to full employment because a large portion of this group choose to remain unemployed for many reasons. Over the past 12 months, there have now been 239,373 jobs created, in seasonally adjusted terms, at an annual growth rate of 2% – up from 0.9% in February.
A quick look at seek.com.au shows a whopping 168,173 job openings Australia-wide.
Growth Sectors are:
Engineering, construction, mining/resources, energy, infrastructure, ICT, healthcare, manufacturing, transport logistics and trades.
If you are supplying to these sectors it is prudent to stand out from your competitors and maximise new business efforts while the market is strong.
Declining Sectors are:
Retail and consumer
Retail is under considerable pressure due to the convenience and low price of online shopping, with weakness in this sector unlikely to improve.
By state:
While NSW and Victoria continue to dominate, QLD remains strong and double digit recoveries in job advertising were reported in WA and SA.
Sourcing Of Staff
For firms looking to source staff, the market is now competitive as many previous economic boom times. Growth is likely to become restricted by the lack of supply of talent with specific skills in new business development.
Typical methods of sourcing staff are:
1. Advertising – fast and low cost but patchy responses and only attracts candidates actively looking for a new job.
2. Headhunting – slow and expensive but allows firms to cherry pick high performers on competitor companies
3. Word of mouth referrals – slow and but the source of strong performers
4. Recruiters – costly but not so if they save you significant time and deliver hard to find talent to grow your business
Action
The only way to profitably grow any business is to maintain operational efficiency and add high performing staff. Staff turnover is inevitable in such a strong market which makes new hiring activity and even higher priority.
For ideas on attracting high performing staff into your business, please email me anytime on th@navigatorconsult.com
Tony Hall is Managing Director of business growth consulting firm Navigator Consulting.
Please contact us for more information on:
– Sourcing high performing sales and recruitment leaders
– low lost, highly efficient, offshore resourcers, researchers and admin staff
– standing out from competitors and winning new business with Recruitment Industry Best Practice Certification