Workforce up-skilling

Upskill and develop staff to progress, writes David Leyshon in Recruitment Consultant, May 2009


We all know that recruitment is a people business – that’s a given. But often the people in the industry are judged purely on the numbers the produce and are promoted to management on that basis. But what if they are great billers but bad managers? What happens to the morale of the rest of your workforce then?

Training and development is not about giving your consultants and managers the skills to recruit – it’s about continually up-skilling and making them better business people - and potential leaders. That’s one of the reasons we introduced our Good Boss Programme which was designed to improve workforce. Every six months team members complete a confidential 180 degree survey to rate their manager against a wide range of criteria and behaviours. The resultant diagnostics are used to determine improvements and an external management coach then holds one to one sessions with each manager in order to close the identified gaps. As a result our latest employee survey rating for management competence has increased from 62% very satisfied in 2007 to 84% very satisfied in 2008 and we are hoping to improve even further on that figure this year.

Succession planning is also key and can be a key inhibitor to growth if not addressed. We have an 18 month leadership and management programme for high fliers and aspiring managers aligned to our succession plan.

There is a clear set of criteria that staff must attain for entry based on performance, behaviours and values and assessments are hep every three months. Last year five out of six staff successfully completed the programme and four have progressed into management roles enabling us to meet our organisational growth targets.

And what about ensuring that your consultants are kept abreast of sector trends in your specialist area of recruitment?

A clients engineering manager recently delivered a presentation to our recruiters which gave an excellent insight into the workings and business processes of a major defence equipment manufacturer.
We also send out consultants in client training courses on products and technologies so that they are familiar with the clients job requirements – one of our account managers recently attended a course on a clients process control system. The result? We are now master vendor to that client.

Traditionally the industry has also rewarded consultants by commission based on hard financial targets – an approach that leads to a purely monetary focus often at the expense of softer skill such as teamwork, managing change, problem solving and cistern focus. Consequently, at the end of 2006 we decided to take a more holistic approach and launched a new performance management and appraisal process which combines both hard financial objectives and also key behaviours.

We have seen great results from this including the development of far more holistic skills and competencies among our consultants as well as improvements in team work including a 36% increase in inter-team placements.
We also deploy consultants at client sites to ensure that sales and service delivery team members get an in-depth understanding of customer requirements.

As an industry, our success or failure is linked inextricably to the quality of our people and in today’s market, more than ever, clients need added value service offerings which call for a while range of skills over and above the old fashioned view of putting ‘bums on seats’.  

By continuing to develop your people – your only true asset – you will succeed – whatever the market conditions.