View from the Hill

An expensive luxury?

Last night I attended the CLSIG Seminar on Redundancy hosted by Jacky Berry and Bruce Madge at the British Medical Association. It was attended by a variety of people who are or may be affected by redundancy. Jacky started off the session by asking that we abide by Chatham House Rules in order that people feel safe and secure in discussing what can be a highly emotive and sensitive problem. This encouraged lively and also frank discussion from both managers and employees.

Jacky spoke honestly about her experiences and the often overlooked position of the manager having to put aside their feelings to utter the words "you're redundant". The lists of both the range of emotions felt and the reasons for redundancy could've been separate seminars in themselves, such was the strength of feeling in the room.

I think what I will take from the seminar is that if you are affected by redundancy, you must remember you are not alone. We resolved to form a network, a community of support from last night's attendees, to know that there is someone else out there who can listen, support, advise and understand. Also that we have to be objective, to realise and accept that redundancy is a business decision, that it is not personal.

"An expensive luxury we can't afford" was the title of the seminar. If you have the privilege of hearing Jacky speak, ask her about her first experience of redundancy and the fabulous jumper she has as a souvenir!

My time at Sue Hill Recruitment

I chose to work at Sue Hill Recruitment for two weeks as my work experience to get a idea of what the real world of work is like. I found this experience to be challenging yet fulfilling, it's been a varied two weeks for me, filing things and shadowing the consultants and the admin staff and sitting in on meetings. I viewed a credit crunch lunch session on writing a winning CV, which I found personally to be very useful because it cleared up my ideas on how to write a C.V.

Sue Hill Recruitment has given me a new opinion on offices. It has led me to believe that offices are friendly environments. I thought it might be quite boring but working at Sue Hill made me realise it was more lively than I would have thought at first.

Posted by Guest Author Mairtin McGarvey of St Thomas the Apostle College, Nunhead.

Looking forward to 2009

2009 will undoubtedly be an interesting year.  The SHR team are looking forward to the challenge and hope you are too.

From a recruitment perspective caution may well be the keyword.  Individuals will think carefully before changing jobs and organisations will doubtless consider carefully before replacing staff or hiring new faces.  Although things appeared to slow a little towards the end of October and early November, December was surprisingly active in terms of new candidates registering to find work and both existing and new clients asking us to help fill some very interesting jobs.

2008 has been a very good year for Sue Hill Recruitment with an increase in turnover of almost 20%.  Despite considerable expansion of premises and the team the company will end the year in profit and have the satisfaction of being able to add to already strong cash reserves.  It is a little sad to have money to invest when the interest rates offered are small in the extreme.  Still I would rather SHR be self funding and receive 0.6% interest on its reserves than to borrow and have to pay considerably more to a bank.

It is good to be able to give a confident message to our steadily growing team of temporary workers, our candidates and our many and varied clients that SHR is in good shape to look forward to 2009.  We are already looking at new ideas and ways of widening our existing operations to open even more avenues to those who entrust their careers and their recruitment to us.

In twelve months time I would like to think we will all be looking forward with confidence to 2010.

The mug is the star!

We recently ran a competition for the most imaginative photograph of a Sue Hill Recruitment mug and were delighted to see our mugs getting out and about. A selection of the winning photographs is shown below. The winners each received a bottle of our own brand champagne and one of our new design mugs.

From Meredith Davies: SHR Mug - traveller through time and space?

From Fo Krabben: SHR Mug wins the WDF Europe Cup in Denmark. Go mug!
 

From Sophie Philipson: SHR Mug poses with View from the Hill. Nice lippie!

Keeping up with new immigration laws affecting our workers

I went to a most informative seminar this morning at law firm Mishcon de Reya on the new points-based immigration system that is being phased in at the moment. As a recruitment agency employing temporary workers it's essential for us to be clued up on immigration law to ensure that we are not accidentally falling foul of any immigration rules or employing  workers illegally. Not only is this a legal obligation but part of our duty of care to clients and candidates alike.

I have been surprised in the year that I've been working here to see what an onerous burden that is and how much of my time as information manager has been spent tracking changes to immigration laws or clarifying points with the Home Office.

Part of the problem seems to me that the Home Office itself is unable to give clear and consistent guidance, nor is information being published on their website in a timely fashion for the new points-based system. For example, Tier 5 Youth Mobility Scheme opens for applications on 27 November, yet the list of sponsor countries is not yet available. The Australian and NZ press have run articles saying that  workers in the YMS scheme may work for the full 24 months of their visa (instead of 12/24 for current working holidaymakers) yet the Home Office is currently unable to confirm or deny that.

Clearly it's the responsibility of all employers to ensure they are compliant with the immigration rules but surely the government has an equal responsibility to us all to ensure that relevant information is provided in a clear and simple to understand format?

Keep your mind and those options open!

The knock-on effect of the credit crunch affects everyone whether directly or indirectly. A few little ripples have disturbed our pond recently.  But it isn't all bad news.

A law client put a job on hold, even though it was interview stage, as they were suspending all recruitment for the time being. Four keen candidates had to be told - sorry, don’t buy that new suit after all.

A candidate turned down an offer last week of an almost perfect job at an excellent salary and then heard that his job was being sidelined in a major reshuffle. Luckily that door was not closed and he went back and put his case for having an attack of the wobbles. The client understood and re-instated the job offer. (The moral here is the devil he did know turned out not to be as good as the devil he didn’t).

A very similar event happened a month ago and the candidate decided to stay where they were. They felt new job on offer was just too different and so it then went to the second choice (luckily they hadn't been rejected). Sadly and a week later the first candidate was one of many to lose their job in the banking fall-out. How could you know?

Today a candidate called to say she had made an application for a job 'outside of the box' (and outside of London) just because her job in The City no longer had that busy buzz (but was probably safe).  To her surprise she got the job and is now about to start an exciting new venture with much to learn and keep her busy.  And no commute.

We're noticing that permanent jobs are slightly less in number. Last week we took half of the usual number. However, candidates seeking permanent jobs are still plentiful. Temporary roles continue to hold up. Some of those fill within a day or two as there are certainly candidates around.  It will be interesting to see what November brings.

Hollywood Librarian hits Borough High Street, SE1!

It is with great pleasure that we are able to screen  The Hollywood Librarian  - www.hollywoodlibrarian.com at our annual temporary workers party on Tuesday 23 September in London. 

Ann Seidl's 'The Hollywood Librarian' is an engaging and often humorous look Librarians through Film and is the first full-length documentary film to focus on the work and lives of librarians.  It is the sort of film you wish you had thought of making yourself.  In fact some organisations perhaps should have got there first!

If you haven't seen it it is well worth taking the time out to see the film. (Like all films it is a bit Marmite - you either love it or .........) There is a diary of upcoming screenings on the website.  Many of these are in the UK and offer a good geographical spread not just in London.

Does the type match the hype?

The newspapers and television news, love a disaster.  Even more if it involves Brits.  Consequently every paper and every news or current affairs programme is focusing intently on the Lehmans debacle and the potential for disaster with AIG.  Both of the organisations are large, have been around a long time and employ many people here in the UK.  If they weren't well known by the man in the street last week they are now.

People are calling me and, in a concerned tone, wondering if we are OK in recruitment.  Well, yes we are.  Our diverse client sector base has always meant that where one element flounders another thrives.  Exposure of information workers generally is much less than it was last time there was a bit (in the early nineties).  Since then the majority of information jobs have been hived off shore and departments that once numbered in the 40s and 50s or even more are now likely to be less than 10.

Several people we know have lost their jobs and it may take a while for them regain their footing at a similar level on their career path but if they keep open minds and re-examine their skills and talent then it could be sooner than they think.  Equally now could be the time to review the options.  Move on out, change careers or at least sector.   Several key information people from banking and the financial sector have gone on to effect change management in places like the British Library and Central Government in recent years, others are using their skills, knowledge and experience of outsourcing to work effecting solutions for other organisations (outside of the banking sector).

I have no doubt that it will hurt some people more than others as everyone has different commitments at different stages of their lives but if they take stock and realise what a spectacular and marketable set of assets they have, ensure that they keep those that need to know informed of their situation then hopefully the pain will not be as bad as feared.

I still see articles and advertisements in the newspapers telling us to invest in the next new property wonder.  Why now it is Albania!    My old gran used to say if you haven't got it you shouldn't spend it.  She never was the speculate to accumulate type, but then she had lived through 3 wars and had brought up a dozen children.  Perhaps she had a point.

If we want a full blown recession we can be the engineers of our own fate and talk ourselves into it. I intend to be prudent but also to continue to believe, as the Chief Economist of HSBC said at a recent seminar I attended, that it will take more than bad news and the current cataclismic events to completely destroy the economy of UK plc. The underlying strength is still there and we must have faith in that.

Most compassionate Employer of the Year?

We were all extremely touched this week when a client offered to pay one of our temps two weeks compassionate leave following a family bereavement. This is incredibly generous - even by the standards of permanent employment. It just shows that temporary workers don't always get treated like second class citizens (as some people assume) and that often employers are keen to offer temporary workers the same benefits as permanent staff members. If we had a client of the year award they would surely win it!