As a successful professional, be it a Senior figure, Manager, or board member, you are a primary driver of success for your company, determining its growth. Ultimately, you are pivotal in creating your company’s story and building a pathway to its goals. Hopefully, you are experiencing current success and business is doing well – but don’t fall into the trap of overlooking areas where you could improve. It’s easy to become complacent, and before you know it, you will start to slip backwards. So how can you ensure you don’t fail to grow? In the current climate with market forces, as they are, you must strive to remain successful – and the key to that lies in planning. 

Sometimes it’s natural to overlook areas where you could make improvements if the company is experiencing overall success. It’s easy to miss opportunities to progress. Alternatively, you may feel that your business is suffering due to market forces out of your control and you’re unable to take a step forward in the current climate.

However, there are always ways to improve and move forward – and that involves taking a step back, first of all, to review your company holistically; its customers, systems, processes, and people to reassess your goals and ensure you are making the most of your business. 

Talk To Your Clients:

It doesn’t matter how qualified your employees are or what specialist services you provide if you don’t focus on customer service first. Customers define your business, so your priority is to ensure you understand their needs (and indeed challenges).

You can do this by conducting surveys and research – both quantitative and qualitative –  to gain valuable insight. Just ensure that your surveys facilitate honest feedback, or you’ll be wasting your time, and theirs. Having a spotlight on your customers’ thoughts about your service will allow you to leverage the elements that you’re already doing well, as well as focus on any hot spots where you need to reflect and make improvements. It’s essential to take the extra step to make your customers feel valued and unique, so make sure you talk to them and listen to (and address) any problems they have. That way, you will inspire loyalty – and loyal consumers won’t just come back to you – they will recommend their friends and colleagues to you too.

Come Out Of The Bubble: 

In a volatile market – where the economy is impacting all facets of running a business,  one of the quickest ways for a business to stunt its growth and cripple its potential is to conduct business blindly. By that, we mean lacking awareness of what your clients’ needs are, how they have changed over time, and how your competitors have responded to such needs to stay ahead of the curve. It can be tempting to get wrapped up in the business-as-usual of today, respond to immediate needs, and push anything deemed important but not urgent – however this can have disastrous consequences for your company. Opportunities to capitalise on market changes, strike deals with highly after clients or scale business operations can pass you by if you fail to pay attention to how your competitors are conducting their business in the market. Coming out of your ‘bubble’ to look at other companies in your market and/or region can really impact how you trade competitively. As the saying goes, ‘no man is an island’ and if you’re looking to increase market share, you need to fully understand where and with whom that market is buying from.

This makes the presence of a regularly updated and detailed target persona an absolute must in your business strategy as it will ensure you have a Unique Selling Point that is consistent. A target persona consists of who your clients are, where their interests lie, what pain points they have, what they want from your services, and much more. Having this level of insight into your target market enables you to not only address their problems at the right time, but it also allows you to make your marketing and specifically your branding effective by communicating your USP at every touchpoint of the buyer cycle. This helps to create a strong brand that utilises both its position and performance in the marketplace to develop a reputation for being an excellent company to do business with. 

Lack of an EVP: 

Going back to red flag number one, a company’s culture, people strategy, and EVP (Employee Value Proposition) live or dies by its values as that forms the foundation for its competence in attracting, retaining, and developing top legal talent. As legal professionals are now becoming increasingly demanding in their search for the ideal employer, one of the biggest mistakes any company can make in today’s market is failing to consider the priorities and preferences of its employees or jobseekers they are looking to attract. Without such a foundation, it is incredibly easy for a company to slip into reactive mode and allow external factors such as economic pressures, market changes, and consequently, business performance to dictate how it treats its employees.  

And even though you will hopefully have ironed out your values as a business at this point, it does not guarantee immunity from making such blunders. The key to a strong EVP is the ability to create and sustain a positive, productive workforce, and that is only made possible through a regular, honest, and thorough review of your people strategy, to ensure your company culture and environment remain the focus of it, and not the business goals – no matter the external or internal situation at hand.

According to Brett Minchington, who coined the phrase Employee Value Proposition in the first place, this comes down to largely five elements:

• Fair pay

• Personal development and growth

• Meaningful work, making a contribution

• Good reputation

• Working with friendly colleagues

Your work environment should have employees feeling valued, respected, and motivated and should regularly facilitate open communication, effective collaboration, and a healthy work-life balance. We have seen a big shift in the market in recent years towards flexibility, hybrid working, and employee satisfaction so ensure that your EVP focuses on these areas while remaining aligned with your goals for business growth. 

Consider Your Leadership Contingent – Are They Suitable For That Role? 

The last few years have been challenging for the legal sector. Dealing with the fallout of the pandemic, increased workload, and the impact of overworking on employees’ well-being means that many companies also now need to uplevel their leadership skills alongside recruiting new hires into their teams to lead their business moving forward.

In turbulent times, everyone looks to great leaders for guidance. Leadership resonates throughout a business, and the quality of your leadership can be the difference between your business’s ultimate success or failure.

A successful law firm requires leadership that is transparent, emotionally intelligent, resilient, empathetic, focused, and inspiring.

If you believe your leadership could develop in some of these areas further, take steps now. Training in personal development and upskilling where needed will enable you to lead from the front. Failure to invest in leadership will result in good ideas coming to nothing, so start at the top. 

Invest In Building A Top Team 

A high-performing team is what any employer would want. A high-performing team of solicitors that is efficient, drives profits and gets results is no doubt the utopia that business leaders strive for, which requires excellent leadership, support in their development, and constant engagement (even before any recruits join the business).

Developing a high-performing team that works collaboratively will enable your company to achieve its goals, both short and long-term. It will create a positive mindset and ethos of encouragement and positivity that will allow your business to excel and grow, keeping you ahead of the pack in a competitive marketplace and making your company attractive to further top talent.

As part of this, professional development should play a significant role in ensuring your team keeps ahead of trends. Training and development of both hard and soft skills will not only instill a sense of pride in specialist knowledge and ability but also make employees feel valued by the company. This, in turn, will lead to better staff retention saving you the costs of hiring and onboarding new employees. Additionally, happy staff are more productive, so you will see positive developments in the bottom line. In a working environment where individuals are part of a capable team, the quality of an individual’s sense of purpose in understanding big goals is enhanced. They feel ‘included’ in decisions, and their ideas and concerns are listened to and acted on. 

Keep On Top Of (And Ahead) Of Tech  

Many sectors today are growing at a rapid pace. If you’re standing still in terms of digital competence, then you might as well be going backwards. Using digital strategies to facilitate and drive your business growth allows you to reach a much larger number of potential clients than ever before. As well as building your client base, if you regularly post industry articles online, you will develop a reputation as being an authority in your specialist areas – attracting both top talent to want to work for you as well as establishing you as a credible company in the eyes of competitors. Your website should also reflect your forward-thinking by embracing new technology. Refining your online platform will make it more responsive, and maximizing your SEO will enable you to reach more viewers online, as well as offer you the opportunity to connect and network with others – crucial in moving forward. Additionally, a social media strategy will enable you to reach more clients, develop relationships and strengthen existing ones, gain insight into competitors, and demonstrate your industry knowledge. 

Plan For Headcount Growth Early 

As companies consider their strategy and business objectives, whether that’s on a quarterly basis as a checkpoint, or a typical 1-, 3- and 5-year plan, any kind of compound growth inevitably goes hand in hand with the need to increase headcount and upskill where required.

Companies may have their own Hiring Managers whose remit is to attract new talent to the business, or this may fall to HR in some cases. Either way, reaching out to a specialist recruiter as those strategic discussions are taking place will undoubtedly pay dividends in the long run to get a true birds-eye view of the market, your competitors, the movement of talent (and scarcity which may impact your plans) – invaluable insight that you can readily tap in to.

Ultimately, a strategic plan is the tool that will enable you to move forward and grow your business. Using your knowledge of what has worked well previously, you can build a pathway to achieve your ultimate goals, avoiding strategies that have failed in the past. A good plan will move you from where you are now to where you want to be. Including milestones, and achievements will keep you focused on the end goals and provide you and your team with motivation along the way. Make your strategic plan achievable (but aspirational) and timely – and don’t be afraid to amend it as you progress if your business’s requirements change.  

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Marketing and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis.

Whether you are looking for your next career move, or your next hire as a business owner or HR professional – we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121.

Communication is key in any workplace, and necessary as a business leader or manager to keep staff members on the same page as you, synchronise teams, and strengthen performance.

Unfortunately, effective communication isn’t always easy to achieve. 86% of employees and executives cite poor communication as one of the core causes of workplace failures. One of the primary challenges managers face is figuring out how to handle complex conversations with their staff members. In every workplace, issues can arise which require a difficult discussion.

You may need to address a dip in performance with an otherwise stellar employee or discuss emotional issues like burnout and lack of engagement.

While conversations such as these can be challenging for every party involved, they’re fundamental to ensuring your employees can continue to deliver and thrive in their roles.

So, how do you handle complex conversations correctly?

Step 1: Gather the Right Information

Preparation is essential to any valuable conversation. The more information you have to go into the meeting or discussion with, the more likely it is you’ll be able to achieve a mutual understanding.

For instance, if you need to speak to your employee about problems with their performance, telling them they seem “distracted” at work might not drive the right results. Most staff members will act defensively when presented with negative feedback and may attempt to argue that their perceptions are incorrect.

However, if you enter the meeting with evidence of your employee missing deadlines, receiving negative feedback from clients, or failing to achieve objectives they have been set related to their job specifications, they will be much more likely to listen.

Having more specific information on hand will also facilitate a deeper discussion about what’s actually going wrong. For instance, your employee may be delivering the same quality of work, but missing deadlines, which could indicate an impending risk of burnout.

Step 2: Set the Stage for a Valuable Discussion

The right setting and plan can make a huge difference to the outcomes of a complex conversation. For instance, when discussing difficult topics, most employees will want a private setting, which allows them to keep the situation confidential. Nobody wants to be called out in front of their colleagues and peers.

Choosing a room or environment which feels comfortable and open can be helpful. An employee shouldn’t feel like they’re being interrogated, or this can lead to a very one-sided conversation, where your team member immediately begins acting defensively.

Schedule a meeting with your employee at a time suitable for both of you, and allow time to have a detailed conversation. It may also be worth letting your staff member know exactly what you’re going to be talking about in advance, so they can come prepared.

For example, instead of saying “We need to discuss what happened in the last meeting”, you can say, “I feel like you weren’t as engaged as usual in the previous meeting, let’s set up a discussion so we can arrange how to address that going forward.”

Step 3: Put Facts Before Feelings

A complex conversation can easily become emotional. However, allowing emotions to run rampant can lead to arguments between staff, rather than valuable conversations. With this in mind, it’s important for you to show your leadership skills, and take an objective, logical approach.

Using the facts you’ve gathered during the initial preparation stage, start thinking about how you can structure your conversation to put logic first. Introduce all of the key issues you want to address at the beginning of the conversation, with evidence and proof for validation.

Don’t tell your employee how disappointed you are, and avoid using “I feel” statements. Instead, remain as calm and objective as possible. Instead of saying “I feel you just didn’t do your best here”. Say, “Based on (facts), you can see this project doesn’t reflect your best work. What happened?”

Step 4: Stay Positive

Although it’s valuable to maintain an objective and logical viewpoint when approaching a complex discussion with a member of your team, it’s also helpful to maintain a positive outlook. The aim isn’t to berate or upset your employee, but to start working together on a solution for the problem you’ve discovered.

Your staff members will be far more inclined to work with you on resolving the issue if they feel as though you’re approaching it with a positive mindset. Rather than just accusing your employee of not working as hard as usual, or being lazy, ask them why they think the issue has happened.

Use this feedback to offer advice on how they can make positive changes. For instance, if an employee feels overwhelmed by too much work, you could suggest different scheduling strategies, or ask them whether they’ve considered delegating some of their tasks.

Step 5: Listen to Your Employee

A conversation is a two-way experience. Unfortunately, it’s easy for a manager to fall into the trap of simply speaking “at” their employee, rather than speaking with them. Even if you have a lot of proof to back up the complaint you’re making, it’s important to remember you may not have the whole story. The only way to effectively resolve a problem is to ask relevant questions and listen to the answer.

Rather than trying to “win” the conversation and prove your employee has done something wrong in a negative conversation, for instance, aim for mutual understanding. By the end of the discussion, your employee should understand they’re not adhering to your expectations, and you should have a better knowledge of why their performance is slipping.

After you’ve presented the facts, give your employee a chance to share their perspective.

This will pave the way for a better conversation, where you can start discussing potential solutions as a team. This strategy will not only improve your chances of resolving the issue but also lead to a better relationship between you and each individual on your team.

Step 6: Follow Up

Finally, just because a complex conversation comes to an end, doesn’t mean your work is completely done. The purpose of any difficult conversation with a team member should always be to inspire positive action, changed behaviour, and results.

Whether you’re discussing burnout, emotional issues, or performance problems, you should always end the discussion with a plan of what to do next. Come up with a strategy using the input of your staff members, and then follow up to see whether the resolution is working.

Checking in, or arranging an additional meeting in the future will ensure you don’t lose track of the issue and allow it to snowball. It also means you can work together to come up with alternative solutions if your initial strategy doesn’t work out.

Difficult Conversations are Common

In any company there’s a good chance managers will have to deal with difficult conversations at some point. Performance issues can arise anywhere, and burnout can cause significant problems for employees. Being able to discuss complex, emotional, and even negative topics effectively are crucial if you want to get the most out of your team.

Of course, it always helps to hire the right people to begin with, focusing on candidates who share your open communication style. Working with a specialist recruitment agency could make conversations with your staff a lot easier, and we’d love to give a helping hand in ensuring your team gets the right fit from the get-go. If you find yourself in a position where you could really benefit from such services, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

In Conclusion

Handling difficult and uncomfortable conversations is always a challenging task, even for the most experienced managers and business leaders but when overcome, they become an opportunity for you to boost employee engagement and performance throughout your team, ultimately benefitting both your team members and the business. Additionally, the above points can serve as possible signs to look out for that could indicate discontentment amongst your employees and a resulting desire to look for a new career move elsewhere, giving you the opportunity to take action ahead of time.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989 and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis.

If you are building your existing team or looking for your next career move, we can help. And, if you are currently employed, you can be assured of complete confidentiality, professionalism, and honesty throughout the process – as standard.

Click here to speak to one of our experienced specialists or call 01772 259121 for more information on how our exceptional recruitment experience can help your career aspirations.

As an employer or a hiring manager, recruiting right now is as challenging as it can get.

And that’s down to the fact that we are in a saturated market. The Covid crisis has caused job losses in some sectors. Still, more so, it has caused movement in the market from accounting professionals speculatively applying for roles as they think and consider their future like never before.

This poses a problem, as the most valuable candidates become swamped by a sea of possibilities.

So how can you hire the ‘right’ accounting candidate when the odds are stacked against you?

Today, we look at the dangers of hiring in a saturated market, and some expert recruitment strategies which can help.

1. Getting Your Person Spec Right

One of the most significant challenges of hiring in a saturated market is not knowing exactly what you’re looking for. When you narrow down what you’re looking for to the exact skills, attributes and personality traits you want, this makes the search easier.

We are currently helping organisations define their finance and accounting job specifications, which has become invaluable in their recruiting process as they redefine their roles for a post-Covid market.

• Have the skills you need in your next accounting professional changed?
• Do you need to hire finance experts with the skills of tomorrow, but aren’t sure what to look for?

We can help you define your finance and accounting roles and person specs to narrow down your search – get in touch with us here to find out more.

2. Hiring for Culture

Another huge change in accountancy recruitment since the pandemic is the need for team players who can be flexible and adaptable while having the organisation’s best interests at heart.

During the Covid crisis, many organisations realised for the first time which of their finance team were true team players, and which were disengaged in their roles.

A successful finance team includes individuals whose values and culture align with their employer, whether that’s in a financial practice or a larger organisation’s finance team.

Any management guide will tell you that cultivating a positive and unified culture in your team is necessary for success. Yet, so many hiring managers still put this low down on their list of priorities.

Creating a set of non-negotiable values that you want your team to have will narrow down your candidate search even further, which is essential when hiring in a saturated market.

3. Organising Your Recruiting Timeline

Making some key changes to your recruitment process will allow you to make difficult hiring decisions much easier.

Improve the speed of your hiring process so that recruitment isn’t taking up weeks or even months of your valuable time. Start with the end date in mind – the date that your new recruit needs to be in their role by, and work backwards from here. A Benchmark survey on career timelines found that the average recruitment process takes 24.5 days, how long does yours take?

Ensure you have a stringent timeline and stick to it. When you start pushing dates backwards or worse – hiring without consulting with all stakeholders – this can create a messy and stressful recruiting experience for everyone involved.

4. ‘Selling’ Your Organisation to the Right Candidates

At a time like this when you want to attract the best candidates, it might just be time to re-evaluate all of your recruitment collateral and employer branding, so you attract the candidates you want and repel the ones you don’t.

A few questions for you.

• Do you have an excellent employer branding strategy
• Do you regularly update and share about your company on social media?
• Does your hiring manager respond in a timely way to candidates both online and during the recruitment process?

Right now, developing your brand awareness as an employer of choice needs to be a part of your recruitment strategy.

5. Working with a Recruiter

Finally, the most valuable step you can take right now is to work with a recruiter.

At Clayton Recruitment, we can take care of all the stages we have outlined here, which, at the moment, is a big undertaking for HR departments which are already pushed for time and resources.

Making the right hiring decision is so critical right now, the last thing any organisation wants is to find out that they have made the ‘wrong’ accounting hire shortly after appointing them.

Your finance team needs to be full of the most talented, best-suited experts for your organisation.

Next Steps

If you have struggled to attract the finance candidates you want and have found that recruitment is becoming a challenging task as you are faced with an increasing amount of CVs and applicants, we can help.

Please get in contact with our expert recruitment team today to find out more about our recruitment service. We don’t just guarantee that we will find you the best possible candidate, we also protect your investment so that if the candidate doesn’t work out, you get your full investment back.

Don’t run the risk of making the ‘wrong’ hire from the many candidates available; use our guaranteed recruitment service to find your ideal candidate in a saturated market.

Call us on 01772 259 121 or contact us here to find out how we can help.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Many industries are driven by their sales and marketing functions, and in our post-Covid world, these departments in your business have become more critical than ever.

Likewise, finance and accounting teams have been the backbone of businesses throughout the pandemic.

In any organisation, both of these parts of your business need to be staffed with the right, dedicated team, to achieve success; and as you grow your business next year, these departments will play a pivotal role.

Despite the pandemic, many industries such as online retailers are doing well, as the market shifts to accommodate the way businesses and their customers are acting to navigate the new normal, we occupy.

In the UK, the sectors that are doing particularly well include banks, certain food and beverage organisations, construction, financial services, healthcare equipment and technology.

Of course, this is a broad picture of the UK, and each business will have its own story to tell.

But what is true everywhere is that organisations who plan to grow next year and come back stronger from the pandemic will need to concentrate on having the best sales and marketing experts, as well as astute financial professionals in key roles.

Today, we look at the importance of both the sales and marketing and finance and accounting functions in your business, and how Clayton can supply you with the talent you will need here for 2021.

Let’s look at where one of the most significant opportunities is right now – sales.

Capitalising on Sales Opportunities

One area we are seeing vast growth is in sales, both in B2B and B2C.

In times of economic uncertainty, this is historically a prime opportunity to increase sales as businesses and individuals are looking to you as a market expert to provide what they need right now. And we saw this in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic this year. It was not the businesses who furloughed their sales departments who are riding high right now – it is the ones that carried on with their sales processes even in spite of the pandemic.

However, the UK has not experienced the worst of the economic downturn that was expected; in fact, the economy is recovering strongly from the Covid period.

Depending on the nature of your business, you will likely have experienced challenges and opportunities this year, perhaps in some unexpected areas. To grow this year and capitalise on opportunities in the market, many organisations are now expanding their sales teams with experienced, talented sales executives.

The most vital asset to any business now as we enter back into a period of healthy trading is a strong sales team – talk to us today to find out how we can help.

Marketing

Marketing has also evolved massively since the start of the pandemic.

The change in consumer habits, government restrictions in this country and wider global business influences have meant that marketing your business probably looks much different now to what it did at the start of the year.

Having an excellent marketing department in place right now is critical.

Sectors which are doing well since the pandemic include online retail, tech, construction, consumer goods and green energy, will require increasing numbers of talented individuals next year to strengthen these brand messages.

Digital marketing software and CRMs like Salesforce have increased their market share during the pandemic as companies realise the importance of nurturing relationships with customers.

A few questions for you.

• Have you invested in digital marketing or CRM software recently?
• Are you getting the most out of your sales team?
• Do you need to provide them with better tools or better management?
• How many additional people might you need?

All these are considerations for organisations today. We know because we are working with companies daily who are building marketing talented teams in these areas. If you would like a conversation to understand how we might help you, get in touch with one of our team today.

Accounting and Finance

Accounting and finance have always been a stable sector and in times of uncertainty always moves into a growth phase, as companies navigate the changes in the economy.

As well as dealing with the pandemic, the UK accounting and finance sector is also bracing for Brexit in 2021.

However, as a full leave agreement is yet to be decided, many banks and financial service companies have already made their arrangements to continue to trade with the EU market. As this financial blog points out, trading in the EU market was ‘too inviting to let go’.

In November, the chancellor outlined exciting new plans for the UK financial service sectors, with a focus on financial technology.

Financial technology is going to play a huge part in the future of all businesses, as systems and processes turn digital in the wake of Covid-19.

Do you have financial technology talent in your team that will drive your organisation forwards?

In terms of financial business recovery, despite more tiered restrictions, positive news about a vaccine has shed light on hope for next year. Recent data from the staffing industry shows that positions in Insurance and Finance were up 22% on the previous week for the week starting the 22nd November.

Good news.

Have you found that demand in your finance and accounting departments has increased in the months since the pandemic?

If the answer is yes or you can predict growth for the future, it might be time to start thinking about injecting some fresh finance talent into your team.

How Clayton are Responding

Clayton has been providing expert recruitment services for over 30 years, specialising in the legal sector as well as sales and marketing and accounting and finance.

Because of the huge shifts happening in the jobs market in the UK right now, we have recognised the importance of pivoting to help businesses who need these most in-demand candidates right now.

At Clayton Recruitment, we are repeatedly asked by clients to source the best of these talent pools to place in key roles; for this reason, we are committing to a focus on sales and marketing and finance and accounting. We are doubling down on our efforts to source candidates specifically in these areas.

We’re committing to a laser focus on sales and marketing and accounting and finance, drawing on our previous extensive experience in these sectors and creating a recruitment process to quickly find clients the candidates they need.

So, we can help if you need sales and marketing or finance and accounting candidates with the most in-demand skills.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can put you in touch with the right candidates to drive growth in your organisation. Call us on 01772 259 121 or contact us here to discuss your recruitment needs.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

In any organisation, there will always be a certain number of skills gaps. As the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme comes to and end, it is now that companies realise how vital it is to take stock of their employees, where they want their business to go, and see how the two directly correlate.

You may have had an idea for some time as to who from your pre-Covid team, will be returning to their roles, and also who won’t and therefore it’s time to conduct a skills gap analysis of your post-furlough team. This blog contains a how-to guide. Finding out where the capability gaps are in your organisation are the first step to putting in place a plan to close this gap, and strengthen your team.

So let’s take a look at how to perform a skills gap audit, and what to do if you find any critical gaps in the abilities of your team.

Identifying What Roles Your Organisation Needs

The roles that you had in your organisation pre-Covid might have changed now that your team has returned. Has the size or the nature of your business changed? Are there departments which have grown or decreased due to changes in the market?

During these times, it would be more unusual if your business hadn’t changed, so an audit will likely be in order.

The following is the three-step process of discovering where your skills gaps lie.

Step 1 – Identify the Skills Your Organisation Needs

Identifying skills comes in two parts – finding out which roles are necessary for your organisation, for example, depending on your sector the range might be varied from:

• the number of packers you need to work in a warehouse to meet demand,
• or the number of team leaders,
• or care assistants
• The number of customer service people,
• or the number of accountants required in your accountancy firm.

Many organisations are currently trying to cut costs, to deal with the uncertainty that Covid has caused across many sectors. Of course, no employer wants to be overstaffed, but the consequences of being understaffed during this critical time will be more severe. And with the UK economy growing the way it is, from an increase of 11.4% to 15% in the third quarter – planning for growth is a smart idea.

Questions to ask include –

• Where do we want the organisation to be?
• In which areas are we planning to expand into?
• With the current workforce, is our desired level of growth possible?
• Do we lack knowledge and resources in certain areas?

Once you have identified the number and the nature of the critical roles you need in your organisation, it’s time to find out if your current team have the skills required.

Step 2 – Assess the Current Skills in Your Team

Assessing the skills in your current team will mean individually reviewing your current team’s abilities.

For each role, use the following framework to evaluate team members –

1. The employee is unaware of this task.
2. The employee is aware of this task but does not have the skills to perform it.
3. The employees can undertake the task assisted by someone else.
4. The employee can perform the task unaided.
5. The employee possesses the skills to teach others how to perform the task.

This assessment can be performed either by the employee themselves or by their managers or supervisor, and you will get the best results if you work together with your employees to discuss their skills and abilities.

Step 3 – Bridging the Gap

From your analysis, you will quickly see how you might have many employees who are at the same skill level, and a lack of employees who possess the necessary capability to grow in the areas you want.

Where are the expected gaps?

There are skills gaps in many sectors across the globe, with the financial services sector and manufacturing two of the most affected areas.

The skills gap in the financial services sector has been increasing year on year, up 30% in recent years.

In manufacturing, a recent study of organisations found that 81% of employers were finding it difficult to hire employees with the skills they need to expand.

Your Next Steps

Once you have discovered where your skills gaps are, the next logical step is to find the talent you need. When you do this, working with a dedicated recruiter in the commercial sector, you will deliver results faster than internal recruitment alone.

At Clayton Recruitment, we are experts at finding you the talent you need to fill a particular skills gap in your organisation, and many of our clients are finding this service invaluable in the current climate.

We can even provide help if you are unsure where your skills gaps are and would like to talk to an expert about what your organisation might need moving forwards.

You can get in contact with us today by calling 01772 259 121 or send us an email by clicking here.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on a permanent basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

Your accountant has a central role within your business, so the notion that they might be about to leave can be an alarming one.

But the reality is that accountants rarely stay in the same place for a long time; they are often recruited onto bigger contracts and higher salaries elsewhere – you probably won’t even know if your accountant is planning on leaving.

However, there are some signs that you can look out for.

As a recruiter, I am used to hearing the reasons that top accountants give when leaving their jobs. Starting a family is a primary example – considering leaving for a higher salary in preparation for an addition to your family, and also planning on a reduction of hours to accommodate new parental responsibilities are both reasons candidates regularly give.

Perhaps they have simply been given a better salary and compensation with a firm they have been on the radar of for a while – this article contains the signs to look out for which might indicate your accountant is about to leave.

1. Their Performance Has Dropped

A drop in performance indicates that your accountant is either less engaged with their role, which often leads to the desire for a new role, or worse still, that they are actively looking for a new job and they have mentally checked-out of your business.

Have they started giving less detail in their financial statements, making careless mistakes or missing deadlines which is out of their normal character?

Keeping regular reviews and even informal chats every couple of weeks to discuss your accountant’s projects and how they are generally feeling at work can prevent negative emotions from harbouring, and solutions can be worked out for problems before they become serious.

2. They Have Closed Themselves Off

Any good leader will be able to recognise a change in their employee’s behaviour. An unfavourable change in behaviour might mean a few different things – your accountant might be going through personal issues, they might be finding their current work too stressful, or not challenging enough; or it might mean that they have disengaged from your company.

An informal chat with your accountant who appears to have shut down might reveal that they are struggling – and this is something you can help them with. Likewise, if they tell you that everything is fine, but continue to be secretive with phone calls and checking their phone, or missing work without any good reason – more on this next – it could signal that they are about to leave.

3. They Have Begun an Irregular Working Schedule

A sudden irregular working schedule might mean that your accountant has things going on outside of work – it is not up to your employees to tell you every detail of their personal lives, but a sudden or drastic change to their once steady routine could be a sign of imminent disruption.

Working late to reconcile the accounts and coming in late regularly over consecutive weeks are two different things – the latter might mean that your accountant has been attending interviews elsewhere.

4. They’ve Got a Big Life Change Going On

If you share a great relationship with your accountant, there’s a good chance that they will divulge their personal news with you. You will probably be aware of any significant life changes your employee has going on – a house move, planning a wedding, looking after a family a member, etc.

Sometimes the personal circumstances of an employee mean that they are forced to reassess their career. Your accountant might not necessarily want to hand their notice in, but a significant change in their personal life might make it the only option.

Have they been mentioning starting a family recently, have they been decreasing their hours to take care of an elderly parent? Life comes at us all fast, but being mindful of at what stage your accountant is at in their personal life should mean that you are better equipped to predict their career movements.

Unfortunately, however, sometimes when employees leave there have been warning signs, but their employer has failed to notice them.

5. They Have Demonstrated That They are Less Fulfilled

If only every employer listened to their employees! Many times, when a great employee like your star accountant leaves, they have been exhibiting visible warning signs that their employer has overlooked.

Quite often, candidates who we work with tell us that they are planning on leaving because they have been unhappy in their accountancy role and have tried to offer solutions to the company to no avail. A recent accountancy candidate who I placed in a great new role had been vocal about their previous company updating their recording systems for over a year, and nothing was ever implemented to help her out. In the end, she left to work for a more dynamic company and her old employer was surprised to receive her notice – he simply hadn’t been paying attention to the needs of his staff!

Finally

Actively listening to your key employees can prevent a surprising notice on your desk, but unfortunately, sometimes your accountant will leave for a career move, and there is little that can be done to avoid this.

If you need help in locating talented accountants or building your talent pipeline so that you have a great candidate in mind for the future of your business, get in touch with us to discuss our recruitment solutions.

About Clayton Recruitment

Clayton Recruitment has been partnering with organisations across the country since 1989, and during that time has built up an excellent reputation for trust and reliability.

With specialist divisions covering Commercial, Financial, Industrial, and Engineering appointments, on both a permanent and temporary basis. If you are looking for your next career move, we can help. Call us on 01772 259 121 or email us here.

If you would like to download our latest interview checklist, you can do so here.

As we head towards the end of the year and get ready to welcome a new one, it’s an ideal opportunity to reflect. That’s why we’ve put together this blog, to help you assess what difficulties the world of business has faced this year, and how to plan so that 2019 gets off to a successful start.

Challenges and opportunities in 2018

Businesses have faced many challenges over the last year, and this has been reflected in the job market. Job stability is always something that worries candidates, and this has been a hot topic of conversation that we’ve had with clients this year. Good retention rates are attractive to the top talent; they want to feel reassured that their skills and contribution will be appreciated and held onto.

However, Brexit has made this challenging, continuing the theme from 2017. Companies across all sectors are having to work harder than even to attract and retain the very best talent. It’s been well publicised that industries that rely on migrants from the EU to complete low-skilled work have been the hardest hit.

It’s not all doom and gloom however. The Edge Foundation has reported that despite the predicted one million vacancies due to a tech skills shortage by 2020, Brexit could give the UK access to new markets and pools of international talent. That’s good news on the horizon for tech companies, a sector that’s ever-more important to our digital society.

What’s happening in the market: plan now, succeed later

As we pointed out above, Brexit is proving tricky for employers and the uncertain climate is something that comes up regularly with our clients. The best way to protect yourself from fluctuations in the market is to plan for all eventualities; in fact, CIPD found that 26% more businesses are focused on developing current staff. Not only does this improve your retention rates, making your business attractive to candidates, it means you’ll have exactly the skills that you need in-house.

Back in January we reported that some of the most in-demand job roles were fork-lift truck drivers, administrators and telesales executives. Naturally, as we have neared the end of the year and Christmas there’s been an increasing focus on temporary positions. This is something that we’ve been continuing to grow, following our client’s needs and demands. We recognise that for many businesses, there’s often the need for extra help without wanting to take on the commitment of a full-time member of staff, so a temporary staff member is a great alternative.

Partnering up with Clayton Recruitment

Whether recruiting for temporary or permanent positions, quality candidates will always make the process of hiring much more efficient and this is exactly what Clayton aims to deliver to our clients. There is a number of ways in which we work to achieve this:

• Providing you with a dedicated account manager
• We build trusting, long-lasting client relationships – we always take the time to listen to your needs and challenges. We don’t just want to understand your business, we learn about your culture and values so that the candidates we put forward are the best all-around fit
• Consistently growing an established database of quality talent

By focusing on your success, we have reinforced our own values of trust, relationships, and growth. These values are what clients appreciate, and we often share the same values as the businesses that we serve, making for a stronger partnership.

We take building positive client relationships seriously, and also strive to build strong relationships with our employees too. So if you’re the kind of company that is committed to building an employer brand that not only attracts but retains talent, then we could be a good match!

In fact, we recently helped a multinational technology business with offices across the UK, who had been struggling to source quality candidates with the relevant skills. They would often receive too many irrelevant CVs, which wasted time sifting through. Training staff internally would take a long time to get to the required skill level; the business was growing and there was pressure to recruit the necessary skills into the company.

By comparing what we knew about the business with our talent pool, we were quickly able to fill the post. The client was delighted and we were thrilled with their glowing review: “I would recommend Clayton Recruitment because the feedback, quality of candidates and speed of response are all critical, all of which Clayton do well.”

Of course, every business measures success differently, although 91% of clients have reported being really pleased with Clayton and the results of working with us.

Talent can be the scarcest resource, which is why our goal is to use our market expertise, insight and networks to ensure that we provide the right people to the right company, so that they become their greatest asset.

Clayton Recruitment’s success stories

It’s great to hear such positive feedback, and plenty more employers agree: in our lifetime, Clayton Recruitment has filled over 2,000 placements. We’ve helped fill vacancies for everything from middle to senior management, mass recruitment to seasonal positions. Each new assignment teaches us something, whether it’s better understanding a client’s business or deepening our industry insight, we strive to improve our service constantly.

Offering our clients a comprehensive and seamless recruitment service is what makes us tick. Thankfully, this passion is paying off because since our MD, Lynn Sedgwick, took charge in 2013 we’ve grown year on year.

Looking ahead to 2019

Of course, it’s important to reflect on the year and to celebrate growth and success – but it’s also exiting to look to the future as well! Each and every win for us means that we’re better able to serve you in future.

And if you are thinking of recruiting, it’s not too late to get things underway and welcome a new-starter in January! We’ll be here until the 24th of December and will be more than happy to help with whatever recruitment challenges you’re facing.

Whether it’s a last-minute temp emergency for the festive season or a full-time employee for your 2019 growth plans, call us on 01772 259 121 and our friendly consultants will be happy to assist you.

In the meantime, you might like to find out more about what a specialist firm can bring to the table in our blog: Big firm, little firm…get the best from your recruitment provider.

You may also like to download our latest report on trends in recruitment: The 7 critical recruitment trends for businesses that will impact your talent pipeline in 2019.

We hope you have a great end to 2018, and we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!