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Episode 59
197 Plays6 months ago
News for the week beginning 29 April 2024 and Question of the Week: "Why is it so important to meet a new client in person?"
#RNA #RecruitmentNewsAustralia #RecruitmentPodcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Weekly News Overview
00:00:11
Speaker
This is the news for we commencing the 29th of April, 2024. I'm Adele Last.
LinkedIn's Top Companies List Analysis
00:00:17
Speaker
LinkedIn's 2024 top companies, a data-backed ranking of 25 best large workplaces to grow your career in Australia was released last Monday. The top 10 large companies were Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Telstra, Australian Super, Rest Financial Services, Google's parent company Alphabet, Atlassian,
00:00:39
Speaker
medical equipment manufacturer, Danaher Corporation, Canva and Adobe. Just outside the top 10 were ANZ, SAP and management consultants, McKinsey. LinkedIn's methodology uses data to assess companies with a minimum of 500 local employees based on eight pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression. They are the ability to advance skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity,
00:01:09
Speaker
gender diversity, educational background and local employee numbers.
Randstad's Q1 2024 Financial Report
00:01:15
Speaker
Randstad, the world's largest staffing firm, last week reported Q1 2024 revenue of 5.94 billion euros with organic revenue per working day down 7.8%. Gross profit was down 11%. Gross margin stood at 20.2% down from 21% the year prior.
00:01:36
Speaker
Perm fees dropped 21%. Underline group EBITDA plummeted by 33% on an organic basis to 177 million euros and group operating profit was down 42% to 126 million euros. Total revenue in the Asia Pacific region was down 7% organically with revenue in RANSAT ANZ down 16%. Overall EBITDA margin in APAC was 3.9%.
00:02:03
Speaker
compared to 4.4% last year. Randstad's market cap is currently 8.77 billion euros, a 6.2% decline compared to 12 months ago.
Australia's Migrant Visa Test Overhaul
00:02:16
Speaker
Testing for prospective migrants to Australia to obtain visas is set to undergo its first overhaul since 2012 as part of a revamp of the country's immigration system the federal government has announced.
00:02:30
Speaker
The government has flagged it is looking to reform the points test for skilled migrants, which determines who gets to come to Australia following a decision to reduce immigration numbers. Home Affairs Minister Claire O'Neill said a revised points test would help improve the immigration system. Our goal is to build a smaller, better planned, more strategic migration system that works for Australia, the minister said.
00:02:53
Speaker
We are significantly reducing migration levels. We are in the middle of the biggest drop in migration numbers in Australia's history outside of war or pandemic. ANU has been commissioned to carry out analysis of skills that drive success in Australia as part of reforms to the points test. The federal government has flagged it wants to reduce migrant numbers to pre-COVID levels as well as have net overseas migration by 2025.
FTC's Ban on Non-Compete Agreements
00:03:21
Speaker
The Federal Trade Commission in the United States last week voted 3 to 2 to ban non-compete agreements that prevent tens of millions of employees from working for competitors or starting a competing business after they leave a job. From fast food workers to CEOs, the FTC estimates 18% of the US workforce is covered by non-compete agreements, about 30 million people.
00:03:43
Speaker
The rule would ban new non-compete agreements for all workers and require companies to let current and past employees know they won't enforce them. Companies will also have to throw out existing non-compete agreements for most employees. Although, in a change from the original proposal, the agreements may remain in effect for senior executives.
00:04:03
Speaker
The new rule is slated to go into effect in 120 days after it's published in the Federal Register. But its future is uncertain as pro-business groups opposing the rule are expected to take legal action to block its implementation. The Biden administration, Democrats and labor advocates have argued non-compete agreements limit workers' mobility, depress their wages and harm entrepreneurship and competition in the US economy.
00:04:30
Speaker
business groups say non-compete agreements are critical for protecting proprietary information and intellectual property, although the rule would not ban other methods for protecting that information, including non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements. The US Chamber of Commerce, the largest pro-business lobbying group in the country, has said it will sue to block the rule.
Controversy over Google's Employee Dismissals
00:04:52
Speaker
Google fired 28 employees in connection with sit-in protests.
00:04:57
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at two of its offices two weeks ago, according to an internal memo. The firings come after nine employees were suspended and then arrested in New York and California on the 11th of April. The fired employees were involved in protesting Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government cloud contract that also includes Amazon. Some of them occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian until they were forcibly removed by law enforcement.
00:05:27
Speaker
Last month, Google fired another employee for protesting the contract during a company presentation in Israel. In a memo sent to all employees, Chris Rakow, Google's head of global security, said that behavior like this has no place in our workplace and we will not tolerate it. He also warned that the company would take more action if needed. In a response statement, the no tech for apartheid group behind the protest called Google's firings a flagrant act of retaliation.
UK's Flexible Working Rights Legislation
00:05:56
Speaker
Employees across the UK have been granted the legal right to request flexible working from the day they enter a new job. Previously, the right was only applicable if someone had worked for their employer for 26 weeks or more. From the 6th April, British employers have a duty to consult with workers before they can refuse a flexible working request. Reasons why demand could be rejected include the arrangement costing the business too much, a negative effect on performance,
00:06:22
Speaker
and the inability of the company to hire more team members. A study of 4,000 workers by campaign group TimeWise found that half would consider asking for a flexible pattern of work on day one of a new job. And that's your news for the week beginning the 29th of April, 2024. I'm Ross Clannett.
Importance of In-Person Client Meetings
00:06:54
Speaker
The question of the week this week came from somebody that I was speaking to who's relatively new in the industry, has had a bit of trouble with trying to get client visits. The question was, why is it so important to meet a new client in person? I'm interested in your thoughts, Ross.
00:07:14
Speaker
Firstly, in the day and age of scams and people purporting to be something that they're not, the first thing I would say is to check on the authenticity of the organization. So do they actually exist? Can you go to a physical premise and meet a person? Secondly, is it a safe work environment? Because if you're recommending a job to a person or if a
00:07:44
Speaker
contract or temporary employee is going to go on site on behalf of you, then you have an obligation to assess the occupational health and safety of that environment. Thirdly, rapport. I mean, yes, you can build rapport over the phone or via a video call, absolutely, but it's easier to build rapport in person.
00:08:13
Speaker
And when you're in person, there's less urgency. There seems to be a sort of restriction when you're on the phone or videos like a bit, go through the question and answer and complete. Whereas face to face, you're more likely to have a more expansive conversation. It's probably going to be a bit deeper. And then the final point would be just
00:08:42
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observing culture. Like how does the hiring manager, assuming that's the person you're meeting, talk to other people that they may engage with? If there's a receptionist when you turn up, how does the receptionist greet you? How might the receptionist greet other people that come in? How might the receptionist talk to or be spoken to?
00:09:07
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all of what might you overhear, all of those things give you little insights or clues as to the culture of the organisation. So for me, Adil, they're just for, I think, pretty obvious and basic ones. What about you? What would you add to that? I agree with what you're saying there. There really is a feeling in an organisation and that's hard to describe to somebody and it's hard to capture
00:09:35
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without physically being there. There is a feeling and little things like you're saying there about how people interact with each other or talk to each other. You know, I was always, I found it really interesting to see whether people would ask you if you were okay in reception. You know, if you're sitting in reception waiting and somebody comes in through the door to go back to their office, whether they stop and say, are you being attended to? You know, it was always interesting to see how people reacted and their friendliness, those kind of things. So there is, there's a feeling in an office that you don't get
00:10:05
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if you don't physically
Challenges of Remote Client Interactions
00:10:06
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attend. And it's interesting you mentioned the point about time spent. I remember early on in the pandemic when somebody first sent me a 30-minute meeting.
00:10:17
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They sent me a meeting request for 30 minutes. And I actually took offense to it. I thought it was quite rude because I thought to myself, we would never book pre-COVID. We never booked meetings for 30 minutes. Nobody expected you to be able to complete what you needed to do in a 30-minute window. It just was unheard of. And yet now that's become a norm. It's quite acceptable to say to somebody, well, your 30 minutes is over. Get off. And that would have been hugely, you know, rude and
00:10:43
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unprofessional, you know, back in the day, I suppose, not even back in the day, they're not that long ago. So you're right, you're going to spend more time, you're going to get that feeling, all of those things. But I guess, what if you can't physically get there? So what if this isn't a reluctance from the client to meet with you? And maybe it's more of a geographical issue? What if the client is in another state or in a remote location or doesn't have an office, perhaps, you know, is completely working remotely from home?
00:11:09
Speaker
What can you do to minimize the risk of the job order? You're taking a job where if you're going to enter into this relationship with the client, what do you do if you just can't physically go there at all?
Effective Remote Client Engagement Strategies
00:11:19
Speaker
What other things could we do? Well, the things that I'm going to suggest are things you might do anyway, even if you get to meet the hiring manager face to face. But if you can't meet the person face to face, if you cannot go on site, then the obvious things are
00:11:34
Speaker
What's the digital footprint that this organization has and the hiring manager has? In other words, go on to the company website, go on to the hiring manager's LinkedIn profile, go on to the company's LinkedIn page. Google reviews, what might you find out? Glassdoor reviews, what might you find out?
00:11:55
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your candidate database, if you go onto LinkedIn and you find the names of current employees, are any of those employees people you know? And if they're not, are any of those employees on your company's candidate database? And if they are,
00:12:15
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has an existing recruiter interview that candidate, was there anything that any insights they might have about that environment? What about turnover? Depending on the LinkedIn license you have, you might be able to very easily find out
00:12:34
Speaker
the growth in headcount in that organization or the number of people that have had that company on their LinkedIn profile. How long have they been there? So there are all sorts of things that you can gain from an online search and although
00:12:54
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their second best, they're still going to give you some pretty good insights, I would suggest, certainly things that may prompt some follow up questions with the hiring manager. Yeah, I think that would be a big thing for me would be to make a really comprehensive list of questions that delve much deeper into the conversation than you might ordinarily. And as you said, look, some of these things you might do anyway, if you were meeting the person in person, but
00:13:23
Speaker
Be prepared with a really comprehensive list of questions that will really help you identify the things you might not be able to see or be across if you don't get to meet the person in person. So be more detailed in your questioning of the client and ask for examples. So if they're talking about their culture and describing it to you because you can't see behaviours of people in the organisation, ask how that is demonstrated. How is something like teamwork demonstrated in the organisation?
00:13:52
Speaker
How would I see or feel that if I was a new employee coming in? So those kind of things, I think, are really good deep dive questions to ask somebody. You might end up having to actually spend more time with them than less, in fact, by being over the phone or on a video call because you need to ask more information and delve deeper. I would also personally ask for more frequent communication through the process. So again, if I had never met the
00:14:20
Speaker
client, I would set up a more frequent communication cycle, something that suits you both, but would perhaps be, you know, every second day, you know, I'm going to call you at 6 o'clock or what time is good when you sit back at your desk? Is that 4.30 of an afternoon? I'm going to call you, you know, every second or third day at 4.30 and we're going to update on what's going on with the job and where things are at. I'm going to talk to you about candidates. So that way, you're keeping the lines of communication open with the person,
00:14:45
Speaker
and also helping to build rapport. Any interaction you get with the person is continually building your rapport.
00:14:53
Speaker
And I think, I suppose the other thing that I didn't mention earlier, it's kind of obvious to say, but it's going to be easier to sell the job when you can describe the working environment. So actually looking at the physical work environment and being able to describe what you see notice are the
00:15:18
Speaker
computers new or relatively new what about the office furniture does it look good economically appropriate does it appear that the appropriate let's say it's a factory does it look like it's well set up in modern like
00:15:37
Speaker
All of those things are important. And frankly, you could suggest, even if you don't get the meeting the first time, that depending upon the role and again, the proximity to meet face to face to present a shortlist, that's also another option. And the hiring manager may be more amenable to meeting with you when you do actually have candidates to present. Yeah, great tip. I love that one. Always a big fan of presenting a shortlist in person where possible.
00:16:07
Speaker
even when you have met before, but yeah, a great way to get in there if they haven't met you in the first instance. So great advice. Thanks, Ross. Thanks, Adele.
Closing Remarks and Call for Reviews
00:16:16
Speaker
Hey, are you liking listening to our podcast, Recruitment News Australia? If you are, it would really help if you could give Ross Clannan and I a five-star review on whatever podcast app you listen to it on. Please hop onto the review section and give us a review next time you're listening on your favourite episode. And thanks for listening.