Time for a Different Conversation

This is a guest blog by our business partner MH+A.

Recruiters have performed brilliantly through uncertain economic times, but many leaders are concerned about staff engagement and wellbeing…

The recruitment industry has responded brilliantly to the uncertainty that has defined the UK economy for the last five years. Recent REC analysis showed that in 2018/19 the number of agencies in the market continued to grow, along with aggregate turnover and net margin.

As a degree of political clarity has begun to emerge, the REC has predicted that the industry will continue to grow. In an industry known for its relentlessness, sustaining and improving performance will be a huge challenge for agencies – and the people who power them.

Recruiters change the lives of the candidates they place – but often pay a personal price for the performance they deliver. Many of our clients are concerned about the wellbeing of their teams – and worry about how they can sustain performance without burning out their people.

They’re right to be. Rates of stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by work have shown significant signs of increase in recent years; the GB economy lost 12.8m working days to them in 2019. That’s a serious problem: for individuals and their employers.

Attitudes to work are changing; employees are increasingly interested in their businesses’ purpose and values…

When we do strategy work with clients, we encourage them to think about the long-term trends that will change their market. On performance and wellbeing in recruitment, we’re particularly interested in two trends: access to talent and changing attitudes to work. 

Even the most tech-enabled businesses rely fundamentally on the skills of their people. 32% of CEOs cite access to skills as one of the biggest threats to growth.  As they do with their clients, recruiters need to think about their talent pipeline and workforce capability.

Recruiters also know better than anyone that attitudes to work are changing. REC research found that financial rewards are now only one of a range of factors which drive employee choice. Employees are increasingly drawn to work which supports a greater good – and believe they’ll shift the balance of power in the employment relationship. 

Engaging openly with staff to define a common cause and values will unlock new levels of engagement and performance…

We think these attitudinal changes are crucial. They create an opportunity to move beyond a traditional, contractual view of the employment relationship in which leaders assume that employees want to maximise financial returns and minimise their effort. This false assumption puts employer and employee in perpetual tension.

We believe that a more constructive, productive relationship is possible if businesses build common cause with their employees, i.e. if they engage with their employees to define a clear and – crucially - shared sense of the businesses’ purpose and values. 

When we say that, we’re not talking about writing a new mission statement. We mean the mission the business is on, the real world impact it has, the reason its customers are happy it exists – and its people get out of bed every morning to work there. 

That’s an easy conversation in a recruitment business that’s transforming the lives of candidates and providing the skills that clients need to succeed. The process of defining purpose and values is, itself, the beginning of the process of realising those goals. 

Where employees feel like they had a say in the definition of a business’s purpose, they’re far more likely to feel invested in delivering it, to really understand it, and so be able to translate the organisation’s purpose into practical action – generating ideas, solving problems and responding positively to change.

Changing the workplace dynamic also creates a platform on which businesses can act more effectively to build capability, resilience and wellbeing…

All of the above is about changing culture – into one in which employer and employee are working together. That more collaborative and supportive environment will, in and of itself, have a positive impact on wellbeing – removing unnecessary, unfounded tension from the employment relationship. 

On that positive platform, direct action to boost employees’ capability, resilience and wellbeing is far more likely to have the desired impact. We encourage clients to put interdependent plans into action on:

• Capability: we suggest clients think about a combination of short, sharp, activities focussed on particular areas of need – and a substantial, accredited, offer.
• Resilience: develop systems and processes that support people to stay adaptive and flexible when navigating change and adversity - and support the wider organisation to learn, respond and stay competitive.
• Wellbeing: ‘one size fits all’ wellbeing programmes don’t work. The drivers of an individual’s wellbeing are as varied as the individuals themselves. Just as the trend in employee benefits is towards personalisation, so should action on wellbeing.

Our biggest point of advice is to think and act at a deeper organisational level first. Creating an aligned, engaged and motivated workplace will create the conditions for success.

None of the above is easy – but the view is worth the climb.

Matt Hamnett is the founder and MD of MH+A – which helps clients translate strategic intent into transformational change and outstanding outcomes.  For more on how MH+A works with clients visit their website here.