It’s amazing what can come out of a Friday afternoon get together by a few industry types.
Matt Alder Recruiting Futurologist of MetaShift, Jamie Leonard of Reconverse.com, Graeme Holiday and myself from 360 Degrees Advertising were pulling the industry apart as you do, when we got on to the state of the economy and employment in general. Raising the spectre of youth unemployment and the truly obscene figure of one million people between 18-24 being unemployed in the UK, apart from the general unemployment figure, the conversation took a turn towards the apparent or perceived disconnect between employers and young people.
On one hand employers are saying they can’t attract good candidates, others, particularly SME’s either don’t have the confidence in the economy to hire or don’t have confidence in the commitment of young people. On the other hand we have young people, Graduate and not, who say there are no jobs.
Into our conversation came the idea of getting some traction behind the idea of giving a job for Christmas. Not a job just for Christmas but as a Christmas present to a young person. Giveajobforchristmas. Between 1st and 31st December let’s encourage employers to offer at least one young unemployed person a job for next year. It could be just one job or a hundred. But anything that will make a dent in the UK’s unemployed young people figures is a step in the right direction.
I realize that someone somewhere (scrooge) may say this is a discriminating act on age grounds, however provided other age groups are not precluded from applying, let’s just say it’s the season of good cheer.
So we are now going into the twittersphere to promote www.Giveajobforchristmas.com, where you can post a job for free. (Note to employers. Please put some jobs on the site to get us going!). We will be live on 1st December. You can just email us with a job and we will post it for you prior to the 1st.
For the past couple of months, things here at 360º have been frantic to say the least. just before the turn of the year, the agency recruited new blood into its client service department and quickly realised it had found two great additions to the team.
Naturally, we wanted to ease them in gently but as with many great plans, things took on a life of their own. It seems personalities can overpower procedures.
Since their arrival, the fortunes of the agency have improved. Now this might well be a coincidence after all, this industry usually splutters its way to Christmas and then catches a second wind going into January and February. But, the industry has changed.
More and more of our day-to-day work is made up of long-term project work, and we had just embarked on a significant piece of employer branding work for one client. The difference however was more apparent with the success rate of our new business success.
From brand projects to education projects, we have worked with a new purpose and vigor because, I believe, there is a new energy emanating from 360º. We are now winning business not just through smart business strategies but because we want it and we go that extra distance to achieve it. This makes people proud and happy and of course, the cycle continues. It’s a good place to be.
Positive attitudes and a willingness to go beyond the call of duty have made their home in the agency again. People are smiling and people are keen to help regardless of the task. Thing is, nothing has fundamentally changed apart from having a couple of enthusiastic and energised people joining the ranks.
But is there a correlation between having an agency with an injection of bright new blood that smile a lot and this knack of winning business and the sudden awakening of existing business?
Who knows? Maybe it’s just that people are pulling together better than ever and even in moments of mad panic there’s still room for a joke or two. Maybe the communication within the agency is improving; we have daily status meetings – well nearly every day and everyone has something to say. Maybe there’s a better understanding of our products from clients and now they want them.
All I know is that this transformation can go almost as quickly as it came and I for one won’t let that happen.
This year, the coalition government announced more devastating cuts they were making to public sector jobs. For many, this meant the loss of employment, for the rest of us this has, and will, result in a huge impact on our community.
Public services that we all use, such as libraries, have come under threat of closure, some having already been shut down. Those unable to access a computer or the internet at home, may rely on libraries to apply for jobs or find general information. Libraries do not only contain books, they are a service provider and help many people in the community.
Protesters outside New Cross library
Cuts to leisure facilities are going to affect us all. Whether you are an enthusiastic swimmer, an exercise junkie or a lover of the arts, savings made in this area are going to be large and the cutting of jobs will result in the closure of centres. It is going to become increasingly more difficult for us to channel our energies into healthy outlets and keep fit. Arts such as theatre and music are also very important in bringing communities together. They can display cultural diversity, giving an insight into the beliefs and traditions of different members within a community.
Young people are going to be greatly effected by the cuts to public sector jobs, with fewer graduates already struggling to find employment. Along with the raise of tuition fees, George Osborne is scrapping the Future Jobs Fund, which supported the creation of jobs for the young, long-term unemployed. This means that 90,000 work opportunities have been lost. With thousands of young people jobless, and a growing amount leaving education with debts of over £40,000 perhaps we should be looking to conduct more apprenticeships and reassess the value of the university degree.
Job centres will lose staff through proposed job cuts, reducing a service that has provided valuable help and advice to those in need. With more people out of work because of public sector cuts, this is an area that communities are going to miss at a time of much needed support.
Cuts to marketing that advises those in the community of the benefits they are entitled to, are undoubtedly going to see an increase in those experiencing extreme poverty.People will not know what benefits they can get from the public service system and will be without the help and support they need.
Another public service, the NHS is going to see its staff cut in large numbers. There have been countless horror stories in the news recently about people being left to die or giving birth alone and these will only increase, as manpower is lost. Savings on wages will mean that those that retain their job will have to work extra hours, which can only result in a lower quality of service and more strain on our local GPs.
NHS Hospital staff at St. George’s Tooting
David Cameron’s idea of The Big Society will really come into play as services we have currently taken for granted disappear.It will be up to members of the community to provide support for the disadvantaged and leisure for those who have the time for it. To get a good quality service we will either have to pay a higher price for private sector services or will have to come together, as a community, to invest our time and money into providing a service for all of those that will need it.
Ask any creative what ad campaign they’d love to work on and a car or a beer campaign would probably get their vote. If only voting for an MP was that easy.
Enter politics. Now, this can be a minefield topic and one close to many people’s hearts. We at 360º are no strangers to the political advertising arena thanks mainly to the relationship we have forged with the Independent on Sunday, call it a coalition for want of a better word.
The Independent on Sunday
For the past few years, we have supported and supplied the IoS with a few political ad campaigns to whet the appetite of their readers and help raise some of the topical issues of the day. Whether, that has been straightforward party political advertising ideas or specific policy agendas, we have thrown ourselves into the political arena.
So, why do we do this? After all, we don’t get paid for it and we (creatives) work out of hours to do it. Well, that’s a good question and we will try to answer it like any good politician would. Now let us make ourselves absolutely clear and we think we have in the past; we believe in adding value in every area of our business and we want to improve the lives of everyone we represent…blah, blah, blah…Look, it’s just great fun. It’s an opportunity to flex some creative muscle and spin ideas that get gut reactions. It helps sharpen creative thought and gives everyone in the agency a chance to be creative – jobs for all. And, it’s a drug. Once you start doing these projects, you can’t stop.
Not only that, you learn something. I’m not sure we, as a collective, knew a great deal about the detail of the referendum planned in May for the Alternative Vote. Now we do.
So here is how it worked. We got a call from a journalist about a week before publication. He apologised for the short notice but to be honest, impactful advertising fairs better when time is of the essence. We grabbed the brief and the first available lunchtime and headed for the pub.
Get a few people in a pub with a bottle of wine and a few packets of crisps and you’ll be amazed at the productivity. This might be a good time to mention discipline. No, not where the wine or nibbles are concerned but where the ideas come from. With a brief that requires you to take a number of perspectives i.e. from all party point of views, you have to put your own political persuasions to one side to do this well. In fact, you have to sit on both sides of the fence and see the arguments from every political standpoint.
The brief was simple.
Should we change the way we vote in general elections?
Currently we run a (FPTP) First-past-the-post system which means whichever candidate gains the most votes, gains the seat; everyone gets one vote and that’s that. The grumbles come from the minority parties and the Lib Dems. They argue that a candidate can win a seat with less than 50% of the returned votes. In other words, the majority of voters didn’t want he or she to represent them in parliament.
Therefore, on May 5th, there will be a referendum asking the nation if they want to change to a different system known as (AV) Alternative Vote system. This gives the voter more than one choice. You can, if you want, vote for more than one party but must put them in order of preference. In the event that no one candidate receives 50% of the votes, the party with the least votes gets knocked out but their voters’ 2nd, 3rd or whatever number of choices they had get added to the other parties. This carries on until one party goes over the 50% target.
Our ideas
AV could create a popular but potentially weak government.
AV could take people even longer to cast votes. Chaos could ensue.
Dave and Nick may not be on speaking terms if AV gets the vote
AV will ensure politicians work hard for their seats.
Is AV one expensive makeover this country doesn’t need?
’Not like that, like that’. There is no magic answer Nick.
See, simple. There were quite a few angles we could approach; everything from the cost to taxpayers for changing the electoral system or putting a drawing pin on a safe seat to the division this referendum would cause to the coalition – Tories are keen to keep things as they are but the Lib Dems want to change and this whole issue was a key bargaining weapon for them when forming the coalition with the Tories.
You can view all the ideas published by The IoS here.
For us at 360º, it was just a case of taking the different propositions and create strong ideas for them. It didn’t matter what we believed was right in terms of electoral reform; it was just the concept that mattered.
Helen Giles a HR specialist with particular focus on the charity sector, has raised some provocative issues regarding the employment tribunal process in a Times Opinion piece 4th January and again when interviewed on the Radio 4 Today programme 5th January.She writes:
“A major concern that perhaps hasn’t come out strongly enough is that the government is embarking on some major initiatives in an endeavour to stimulate the economy, reform the welfare benefits system and get long-term unemployed people back into work, and to achieve social improvement by involving community groups and charities in setting up and running social enterprises, locally run/free schools and so on. But the degree of employment regulation/employment law that has been introduced and the way that this law is administered by the Employment Tribunals system as it stands poses a major obstacle to achievement of these aims because of the costs and risks involved for employers in employing people generally, and particularly if they make the mistake of employing the wrong people, which is a very hard mistake to avoid all of the time.
In a nutshell, the issues are:
The Employment Tribunals framework was set up in the 1960sas a simple and cheap means of jurisdiction in employment disputes. It has evolved into a complex system of legalised extortion, extremely costly to both employer and state (another unnecessarily heavy drain on public funds at a time when savings have to be found).
The Coalition Government clearly has some inkling that there is a problem whereas the previous administration refused point blank to accept any need for a review, claiming that any reform of the system would lead to workers oppressed by hard-hearted employers being deterred from seeking remedy. Noises have been made about increasing the qualifying period necessary to claim unfair dismissal from one to two years’ continuous service. But this misses the point that many of the most vexatious, costly and troublesome cases are taken under one or other of the heads of discrimination, for which no length of service is needed – age, sexual orientation and religious and philosophical belief were added to sex, race and disability. 38,310 discrimination claims were lodged last year. It’s free to lodge the claims but employers have to pay legal fees from the moment they receive notification of the claim.
The elaborate pantomimes that the law forces employers to play out when trying to deal with an employee’s poor performance or conduct for fear of a claim being made is severely restricting efficiency both in public and private services.
Every year the volume of ET cases filed goes up exponentially – over a quarter of a million cases accepted in 2009-10, an increase of 56% over the previous year - so that the system itself can’t cope and in busier parts of the country it took 18 months for cases to be heard. Only 13% of these were successful in court. Two thirds of claims are settled out of court, sometimes because the employer has done something wrong or procedurally unwise but more often because the costs of fighting, irrespective of the weakness of the employee’s case, are prohibitive. The HR Director of a Housing Association recently told me that for the cost of fighting a case, which they won, they could have built three new family homes.
No-win no-fee lawyers are shamelessly inciting people to submit claims on flimsy grounds because they know they can bully a settlement out of the employer on the eve of a case being heard, however weak the employee’s case. They know employers and their insurers (if insured) would rather pay out £25,000 for the employee to go away rather than £50,000 or more to fight the case in court, even if they are almost certain to win the case.
I recently ran a Business Link seminar for small business people on how best to protect themselves against the perils involved in employing people. One participant told me that many of his small business-owning friends employ illegal immigrants cash in hand because although the penalty if caught is an unlimited fine and two years in jail, they see this as less risky than having workers on the payroll who are likely to exploit their limitless rights.
It is going to be tremendously difficult for the Government to achieve some of its key policy objectives unless it undertakes a wholesale reform. The long-term unemployed about to be reintroduced to work constitute a massive risk for employers liable to have claims made against them when they try and part company with those who don’t work out. And the Government wants charities to play a large part in bringing about the ‘Big Society’, but charities always have to have some paid staff and the smaller ones are groaning under the burden, expense and risk involved in complying with an employment law system that has become so far skewed in favour of the employee, largely because there is absolutely no financial disincentive to pursue weak and opportunistic claims. Moreover, it is just very difficult to run an efficient workplace when employment law encourages people to present themselves as victims of bullying and discrimination whenever the employer justifiably tries to tackle their poor performance or behaviour.
I have practical ideas of how reform can take place, for example every claim should be subject to a desktop assessment in precisely the same way as insurance lawyers have to certify the employer’s case as having more than 50 per cent prospect of success before they will underwrite it. Where the employee’s case is deemed as having less than 50 per cent prospect of success they should be advised that they will have to pay the employer’s costs if they insist on pursuing it. There are many others, including lawyers, who have all manner of practical suggestions. The general principle is that claimants must be made to bear costs if they lose cases.
I have many true life astounding tales of the nonsense that gets entertained by the ET system, and the real costs to the organisations involved.
Employment regulation more broadly is set up to undermine organisational efficiency. For example the TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) Regulations means that a service (say a social care service) often fails because the staff are so bad, yet when the service is re-tendered all the bad staff have to go with it, and the rest of employment law makes it really difficult to get rid of them. Or the regulation which states that when redundancies are being made, a woman on maternity leave has the automatic first right to any job that remains. This means s a poorer performing employee has to be kept in preference to a high performer just because the former has had a child. Or the ridiculous procedural lengths that have to be gone to before dismissing an underperforming employee – typically it takes a year or more to go through all the hoops before dismissing someone, so that employers often pay poor performers massive sums to go away – sometimes 100% of salary whereas in a typical performance related pay scheme the most someone can hope to earn as a bonus for exceptionally good performance is 10% of salary.”
Helen continues
“Statistical evidence, such as it is, can be found in the most recent Employment Tribunal Stats. There is no measurement in these or any other stats that I know about of the amount of time that is wasted by employers on dealing with workplace grievances leading up to claims, nor of the amount and sums of settlement paid to stop people lodging a claim in the first place. This information would need to be collected through interviews of a cross section of size and types of organisations in all sectors. Bigger businesses fare best because they can afford to pay people to go away rather than entering into the months’ of effort and toil involved in ‘fairly’ dealing with an underperformer, non attendee or bad behaviour. And see, for example, the Telegraph article from 3rd January about the £600,000 that the BBC forked out in the last year to settle claims, having had 33 of them.”
Finally, a resounding endorsement of her opinions comes in the form of a letter in today’s (5th January)Times from an ET judge of 22 years’ standing, who gives yet another level of analysis on how the system is not working as it is intended.
“What started as system of quick informal justice for workers at a time when there was no real protection from arbitrary dismissal has mushroomed into a bureaucratic and hideously complexquagmire of procedural and legalistic niceties, based partly on an enormous increase in statute law”
Helen Giles is Managing Director of Real People part of the Charity, Broadway Homelessness and Support. Real People’s award winning HR team delivers a comprehensive HR consultancy service.
A newly published research report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
states that the cost of replacing a competent employee equates to around a year of that individual’s yearly salary. They say that this is an estimation of the costs associated with lost productivity, lost skill and the cost of replacing and training new staff.
The report predicts that UK businesses are losing around £42 billion each year due to lost talent and that the UK trails other economies in terms of staff retention levels (UK 10.4%, US 7%, Germany and France 5%)
Richard Phelps, Human Resources Services Partner PwC comments: “With many companies eager to maintain or grow staff levels as the economy starts to recover, it is crucial they consider the full costs of losing staff through resignation. The need is particularly pressing given that many employees who sat tight during the downturn may now be looking for new opportunities elsewhere”
Investment now on positive employee engagement and promoting your employer brand will clearly have an impact on your longer term retention levels with the potential to achieve significant savings. Here at 360 Degrees Advertising we are working with a number of clients on developing their Employer Brand and Employee Engagement strategies.
There is no doubt that today’s job market is a tough place to be and gaining employment is nothing short of a hard task. However for an employer, it should not just be about choosing the right candidate from the interviewing process. To secure the best worker for a company, it is essential to keep your workers happy!
I have a friend that has just graduated from a top ten-rated university with a 2:1 honours. She has a lot of work experience behind her and evidence of travel and other interests/qualifications on her CV. After two gruelling interviews with a digital recruitment consultancy firm in West London, she secured herself the role of Account Manager.
Although she was ecstatic to have gained employment in our current climate, my friend was very concerned with the number of hours the job entailed and the one and a half hour commute she would have to endure, across London twice daily. As the time drew towards her start date, she convinced herself that this was not the job for her; she had never wanted to work in recruitment or in fact, work for more than eight hours per day
Starting at this agency two weeks ago changed her pessimistic attitude. Being warmly greeted by the thirty other staff members on her first day and receiving helpful and friendly emails from a select few, put her straight at ease.
Although her employers certainly want top results, there is not hard-line pressure; in fact there is a camaraderie that one may not expect to find in a generally competitive business. Boundaries are set for certain achievements and they are realistic, with help always being at hand.
There is an active and lively social life; next week there will be a sports day in which the management will provide food and drink for all staff.Fancy dress regulations will apply, instilling an element or fun and comedy. This is a place where the motto is; that people really matter and being happy at work creates better results.
My friend now really wants to succeed in her new role, not just for herself but also for the whole team, who have made her feel so welcome. This atmosphere has secured her service, when otherwise she may have chosen to stay in bed, something she enjoyed very much in her days as a student!
It was once the man who brought home the bacon and the woman that cooked it. However times are changing. In a survey conducted by the Daily Mail, it was found that thirty percent of women earned more than their husbands.
It should be no real surprise. It has been found that more women go to university than men, get better results from school and graduate with better degrees.In theory, many are more qualified for the job. Of course, the fact that less women are taking time out of work to bring up children also contributes to the increasing number earning more than their husbands.
Subsequently men have to do more around the house; househusbands now run one in ten households. This not only challenges the gender assumption that men provide for the family but also observes a swapping of roles; women are not only providing for the family and men are completing chores and looking after children.
However men are still earning more than women when both are in full-time work, typically earning 20% more before tax. What does the future hold? Perhaps by 2020 we will see women holding doors open for men and more offering to buy the drinks at the bar!
Grazia magazine found that almost half of full-time mothers disliked not earning their own money and with over one third of marriages ending in divorce it is no real surprise. In today’s society, where a marriage is not life binding, it makes sense for women to assert their independence. Society has arguably provoked women to use their abilities to get out into the work place, where in fact they are able to do better than many of their male counterparts.
Many men don’t feel comfortable with not being the main provider, the typically masculine role. Woman’s having assumed this status has been recorded as leading to breakdown in marriage. This, along with some women giving up the idea of having children, is creating a serious change in society.
It is calling for more fluidity between women and men within their relationships but it is also affecting the work place. More women are making it to previously male dominated roles. Although employers may have originally employed a man over a future mother, with so many women acting as working mothers this philosophy has begun to change.
Yesterday I spent a great day in the sun at the Farnborough Air Show, as a guest of Flight Global – the online partner of Flight International. Virtually all the editorial team, both UK and international, had been relocated to Farnborough for the duration of the show. I didn’t count the number of terminals but I guess around forty were set-up from which apart from continuing to produce material for the magazine and website, they were producing a daily news bulletin for the show. Impressive.
We use Flight International and Flight Global for our client – The Civil Aviation Authority. Flight provides a highly targeted solution when recruiting aviation and associated professionals on an international basis and underlines the continued importance of trade publications as part of the media mix, particularly when partnered with an internet product.
As an “aviation nut” I also enjoyed the opportunity to view the latest in products and technology. Whilst seeing the Airbus A380 and the brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner going through their paces was impressive, what really struck home was the huge increase in the number of unmanned vehicles on display and the plans for unmanned combat aircraft. Will this lead to unmanned commercial aircraft? Technologically possible, but not for me thanks. I’ll keep to the human being upfront. It may not be statistically safer but if the computer gets a clitch…!!!!!!
