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Episode 63
222 Plays6 months ago
News for the week beginning 27 May and Question of the Week "How do you progress your recruitment career if you don't want to manage a team?"
#RNA #RecruitmentNewsAustralia #recruitment
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Transcript
Collar Group's restructuring and management response
00:00:08
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This is the news for the week beginning the 27th of May 2024. I'm Ross Clennet.
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One of Australia's fastest growing recruitment agencies, Collar Group entered voluntary administration on Monday. The group issued a statement via LinkedIn on Monday afternoon that read, in part, today with a heavy heart, Collar made the extremely difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 20% across all areas of the company. This painful step is being taken to realign our expenses with current revenue realities.
00:00:38
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Moving forward, we will be restructuring the business and focusing on implementing new efficiencies and streamlining processes to enhance productivity, which will position Collar for success in the future. Importantly, Collar remains operational and committed to serving our clients.
CEO's growth ambitions and internal challenges
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We are confident in our ability to navigate this period and emerge stronger.
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Based on the more than 100 comments on the LinkedIn post, it appears senior management found out about the decision at the same time as other Collar employees. Collar was founded in July 2021 and in less than three years had grown to more than 140 recruiters in nine offices across Australia.
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with over 1,000 contractors and on-hire employees. Earlier this year, founder, sole director and CEO, Ephraim Stevenson, projected turnover would climb from $45 million last financial year to $120 million this financial year. Stevenson's stated ambition was to break the long-standing dominance of the existing large generalist recruiters in Australia, such as Hayes, Chandler McLeod, Workpack, Manpower, Adeco, Programmed and Ranched.
00:01:46
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Some of Collar's most senior executives joined from these companies. However, the cracks were starting to show with a slew of senior departures in the past nine months. Chief Risk Officer, Jamie Malander, Director for Mining, Trades and Labor, Emma Costa, Group General Manager for RPO and MSP Talent Solutions, Chris Neal, WA State Director, Janelle Coppen and successive Queensland State Directors, Jamie Lewis and Joshua Allen, all left Collar between August 2023 and last month.
00:02:16
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Ephraim Stevenson has not commented publicly about the decision to enter voluntary administration.
Telstra and Recruit Holdings: Job cuts and financial outlook
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Australia's 12th largest public company, Telstra, plans to cut up to 2800 jobs in a move it says will help save the company $350 million. The potential job cuts announced last Tuesday amount to about nine percent of the company's workforce, with most of the axed roles to go by the end of the year.
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Chief Executive Vicky Brady said the changes would ensure Telstra could continue to invest in supporting the ever-increasing growth in data volumes on its networks. Some of the proposed measures, which require consultation with employees and unions, would result in up to 2,800 job reductions from Telstra's direct workforce, she said. Brady said the telco anticipated a restructuring charge of $200 million to $250 million, which would cover the redundancy costs.
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Telstra said the talks with workers and unions on initial cuts to nearly 400 jobs would start immediately, mainly from a reset of the Telco's business to business enterprise division. The job cuts combined with reductions in other costs were expected to save the company $350 million by the end of the 2025 financial year.
00:03:31
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Tokyo listed recruit holdings, owner of local brands Chandler McLeod and People Bank, reported full year revenue for the financial year ended 31 March 2024 of 21.9 billion US dollars, a decline of 0.4% compared to the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA rose 9.8% and pre-tax profit rose 15.9% to 2.7 billion US dollars for the year.
00:03:58
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Looking ahead, the group forecasts revenue in the range of US$21.2 billion to US$22.4 billion for the 2025 financial year.
Hunter Valley miners benefit from legal changes
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The company's current market capitalization is just over US$74 billion. 27 labour hire coal miners from the Hunter Valley region are the first direct beneficiaries of same jobs, same pay laws, with the mine operator offering them permanent jobs
00:04:27
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with pay rises of more than $30,000 each per year. In March, the Mining and Energy Union made a Same Job, Same Pay application to the Fair Work Commission for programmed labour hire mine workers at Mount Pleasant Coal Mine near Musselbrook in New South Wales, operated by Theis. The MEU has withdrawn the application today after Theis agreed to directly employ the programmed workers in scope of the proposed Same Job, Same Pay order.
00:04:55
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This is a terrific outcome for these workers and an important step towards restoring wage justice across the mining industry, said the MEU Northern Mining and New South Wales Energy District President Robin Williams. Mr. Williams said there had been an increase in mine operators offering permanent jobs to labour hire workers since same job, same pay laws were introduced. He said the union would now proceed with preparing and submitting its next applications for labour hire workers across the mining industry.
Recruitment challenges and top employers in Australia
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New research from payroll management and workforce platform Humanforce has revealed that almost 70% of Australian workers have abandoned job applications due to complicated and confusing recruitment processes.
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The survey identified clear communication as critical, with 94% of respondents ranking it as the most critical element of the recruitment process. Many respondents identified complex instructions and unclear requirements as significant pain points, with 69% attributing these issues to their decision to abandon job applications. Additionally, a lack of transparency around the recruitment timeline led 28% of respondents to abandon their application.
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Around half of the survey participants also expressed frustration over inadequate communication from employers during the recruitment process. The survey also underscored the broader implications of a complicated recruitment process with 95% of respondents believing that a company's hiring process reflects its work culture.
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Polly Barnes, Chief People Officer of Human Force, commenting on the results of the survey said, our company handles its hiring process can give you a sneak peek into its culture. If it's all confusing and complicated or arduous for candidates, they're going to think, is this what working here will be like? And ultimately, that could sway their decision to take or not take the job. Global consulting firm Deloitte has Australia's strongest private sector employer brand.
00:06:52
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and the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, DCJ, ranking as the public sector's most attractive employer, according to a new employer brand survey. Deloitte topped the combined rankings with Insurer AIG second. The third was DCJ, according to a survey by the world's largest recruitment company, Randstad. The second most attractive public sector employer is Transport for New South Wales, followed by New South Wales Health at number three.
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Australia Post ranked sixth and the Queensland government 10th, reinforcing the popular perception that the public sector is an attractive place to work. Fifty one percent of Australians up from 48 percent in 2023 believe the public sector is a desirable employer, according to the results of a study of more than 6000 Australian workers released last Tuesday. The public sector ranked number five among the top 10 most desirable sectors, which was headed by the construction sector at number one.
00:07:49
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and transport and logistics at number two.
Defence recruitment changes and salary trends
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The Australian Defence Force has axed 14 health entry requirements in an attempt to boost the number of recruits
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It's reported the existing restrictions with the cause of around 70% of ADF applicants being rejected each year. Braces, acne and some mental health challenges will no longer be barriers to applicants entering the ADF recruitment process. The Australian Defence Force hopes the changes will help with the recruitment and retention of 80,000 personnel by 2040. According to SEEK's advertised salary index for April,
00:08:27
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The rate of growth in advertised salaries picked up last month, rising 0.3% month on month after tracking in the 0.2% range since January. Year on year advertised salary growth rose 4.3% from 4.2% in March. Tasmania continues to outpace the rest of the nation with advertised salaries rising 6.7% year on year for the state, whereas New South Wales recorded the lowest growth rate rising 3.8% year on year.
00:08:56
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Advertised salaries in all states and territories outpaced inflation in the year to April. While moderating a little, advertised salaries in community services and development remain robust at 8.1% year on year, as the Fair Work Commission's wage decision for the aged care sector still flows through to advertised roles. Roles in ICT and banking and financial services recorded negative growth over the past quarter, reflecting an extended period of softening demand for these roles.
Global economic outlook and recruitment trends
00:09:26
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The employment outlook is consistent with the existing 2024 trend, with 48% of employers recruiting during the month, a one percentage point decline from last month, according to the JSA Recruitment Experiences and Outlook survey of over 1,000 employers in April.
00:09:42
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The recruitment difficulty rate increased by three percentage points over the month to 53% of recruiting employers. The recruitment difficulty rate was 50% for capital city employers up four percentage points from March and 58% for rest of state employers unchanged from last month. 20% of employers were forecasting an increase in headcount in the upcoming three month period.
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a 2 percentage point fall compared to March. 4% of employers surveyed in April forecast a reduction in headcount for the next three months, unchanged from last month. Business activity in the US picked up speed in May. According to the S&P Global Outlook Index, it rose 54.4 in May, its highest in more than two years. The US economic upturn has accelerated again after two months of slower growth
00:10:33
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With early data signaling the fastest expansion for just over two years in May, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said. The data put the US economy back on pause for another solid GDP gain in the second quarter, Williamson continued. Not only has output risen in response to renewed order book growth, but business confidence has lifted higher to signal brighter prospects for the year ahead, Williamson said.
00:10:59
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However, companies remain cautious with respect to the economic outlook amid uncertainty over the future path of inflation and interest rates and continue to cite worries over geopolitical instabilities and the presidential election. Although companies in the United States continue to report lower employment, the rate of job losses moderated amid improved business confidence, according to the report.
Insights on recruitment career progression
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And that's your news up to date for the week commencing 27 May 2024. I'm Adele Last.
00:11:39
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We have an irregular segment we want to discuss with you called update from the desk. Ross and I from time to time, we'll just let you know what's happening on our desk and upcoming interesting events and things that we're part of. So what's happening for you, Ross? So firstly, I have my rookie recruiter training program Adil, that is a live hosted webinar program that goes across a couple of months.
00:12:03
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It's Tuesdays 12 o'clock till 2 Australian Eastern for eight sessions. $979 plus GST designed for agency recruiters in their first six months. I also have my Leadership Coaching for High Performance program.
00:12:22
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And that is, as the name suggests, for leaders, specifically team leaders or owners of small recruitment agencies, six 90 minute sessions every couple of weeks and an individual session of 45 minutes with me.
00:12:38
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So the rookie recruiter training program starts today, in fact, but I do accept late registrations and you will be given access to the recording of any of the sessions that you have missed. $979 plus GST. Leadership coaching for high performance starts on the 25th of June and runs through until the 25th of September. That's $2,550 plus GST.
00:13:04
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Both programs can be accessed via my website, roscclenet.com. You will see there are big buttons on the homepage and you will see the rookie recruiter training program button and leadership coaching. Click through and that will give you all the dates and all the content and you can pay with any major credit card. So what about you Adil? What's coming up? Yeah, I have a couple of things happening this week and in the coming month as well.
00:13:30
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Captain's Table, which is a recruitment networking event that I run. We have a webinar coming up this Friday with Brooke Lord, the Head of Advocacy for the RCSA, is actually going to answer all questions relating to closing the loopholes bill. So most people are aware of this bill now, but we still have lots of questions around it. So we're very grateful for Brooke to volunteer to put herself in the hot seat. The webinar is on Friday at
00:13:59
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11 o'clock. There is still time to grab a ticket for that. You'll also get a bonus recorded webinar from last week that we did around game changing secrets for the end of financial year. So two for the price of one webinar options under captain's table. And we've also got our next in-person event coming up on the 11th of June in Melbourne, 12th of June in Sydney. And that's a session called You Can't Ask That, similar to the TV show on ABC,
00:14:26
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We have an expert around neurodiversity in the recruitment process. So we're going to talk about things you can and can't ask somebody that may, and we're told up to 20% of the population, in fact, identify with some neurodiverse element to the way that they process information. So it's a really valuable one, that session, and I think something that we probably need to get out in the open and talk about. So you find information about that on the Captain's Table website, which is Captain's Table.
00:14:56
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From a personal perspective in Career Lasso, I have released my fractional management offering, which is on my website now of careerlasso.com. This is an option for senior leadership support, CEO type support within the recruitment space on a short-term basis, part-time basis.
00:15:19
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a seasonal basis, let's say, to help recruitment leaders that may want to either step out of their business, need some hands-on support, or need to prep their business for senior leadership coming in. Brilliant. Okay. Well, I will certainly recommend that to any of my clients who might be looking for that sort of support Adele. Right. To finish, I would invite you all to donate to my Mother's Day Classic.
00:15:47
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fundraiser. Mother's Day Classic has of course gone for this year. It was on Mother's Day, 12th of May. My fundraising in support of breast cancer research and ovarian cancer research remains open until the 30th of June. For those of you who don't know, my sister Mary died of breast cancer
00:16:07
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in 2012, leaving behind a husband, a five-year-old son, a four-year-old daughter. And so I've devoted my fundraising efforts to breast cancer research via the National
00:16:18
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Breast Cancer Foundation each year. And if you'd like to donate, I would welcome your donation of any amount. Go to mothersdayclassic.com.au and then in the search for fundraiser function, put my name, Ross Clennet, and you will find me. And I would appreciate any donations that you'd like to make. I'm up to $19,000 this year and I'm gunning for 30. Please support that if you can.
Non-management roles: Challenges and growth
00:16:46
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And on to question of the week from here.
00:16:59
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The question of the week this week comes from one of our listeners that directly contacted us to ask a really interesting question about recruitment career progression. The question was, how do you progress your recruitment career if you don't wish to manage a team? I think we can start a deal by just looking at, well, what really are the options? When you start as a recruiter, the first thing clearly is to become a competent recruiter.
00:17:27
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be competent in that winning work, filling work, sourcing candidates, placing them into work. Then you're at a point where, okay, do I just stay on the bill path? Do I want to become just a big biller? Do I want to lead a team and have leadership responsibility within my existing recruitment agency? Do I want to progress into a non-billing role? And certainly there are people
00:17:55
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in our industry that have done that move into operations become more HR or L and D or something like that. You can move outside of the recruitment agency space and move into internal recruitment with a corporate team or an RPO team. You could move
00:18:18
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out of the recruitment agency you're in, but still be in the recruitment industry with a vendor. So work with a supplier, say, SEEK or LinkedIn or a business such as that, or you can move out of the industry and out of recruitment altogether and go off and do something else. So what did you choose, Adele?
00:18:41
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Yeah, I chose a reasonably traditional path, I guess, Ross, in the sense that I went into a leadership role. So it wasn't necessarily my intent when I started in recruitment. I did just want to master the skill of the job and I guess very early on the motivation was very financial related. I just wanted to earn a lot of money. But obviously as I enjoyed the role more and I got better at it, I saw the leadership pathway
00:19:07
Speaker
a peer before me and I grabbed onto that and continued to kind of grow my skills as a leader and develop a team underneath me. So I personally took a really traditional approach of starting a recruitment and working my way up to building a team underneath me and then into very senior leadership roles. What about your own experience?
00:19:28
Speaker
Pretty similar. I mean, I was a recruiter for, I think, five years before I had an opportunity to step up into leadership, which was with the existing team that I was part of. And that was pretty challenging because there was a colleague of mine who was slightly older than me, who'd been there slightly longer.
00:19:49
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and she and I were actually really good friends and it effectively was a choice between her or me and I was the person that was chosen.
00:19:58
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And so ultimately she left. I led her for a period of time, not very effectively, I've got to say. And I was a pretty inadequate leader for quite a period of time. It was really quite painful. There is a big step up between being an effective recruiter and then being responsible for other people and the development of other people. And I suppose to be fair to myself, I did have a lot of people reporting to me. I didn't just step up and I had one or two, I think I stepped up and I had
00:20:28
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maybe eight people reporting to me. So it was a big stretch. But that was something that man, if I'd known at the time how difficult it was going to be, I don't know whether I would have accepted that opportunity. But looking back,
00:20:43
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I think, well, I'm probably glad I didn't know because I did get all of those ultimately very valuable learning experiences in being bad and then having to get a lot better. What was your experience in stepping up Adil? Yeah, I think I...
00:21:04
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really enjoyed and relished that leadership role personally. So I think for me, it was a quick transition and one that I wanted very much. So I took it on probably more slowly than you're talking about. I certainly only managed one person and then two and then four and 10 and it grew. So for me, it was more progressive in that sense. But I really relished that role and I didn't want to ever kind of go back to a
00:21:32
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you know, on the desk recruitment role. However, I worked with a lot of people that did and I do understand this question because I worked and then managed a lot of people that were very good at their job and for any number of different reasons didn't want to lead a team. You know, it might have been family responsibilities. It might have just been that that wasn't in their DNA and they kind of went on to do different things. I always tried to find ways to retain staff that were good recruiters but didn't want to manage a team.
00:22:00
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And sometimes they ended up in roles like sales or, you know, BDM type roles, client services, or even candidate side. You know, they ended up in a senior kind of candidate management role where they weren't managing a team, but they were overseeing a function in the business. But unfortunately, I think most of my actual examples of individuals, if I think about those people now, they're not in recruitment agency anymore. So they actually bounced out altogether and went out into other things.
00:22:29
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still in the, either in internal or in the periphery of the industry, but it didn't quite work out for them in the agency space. So I get this question, I get why it was asked that, you know, is that the kind of main pathway of where you need to go? What other examples are you aware of? Well, the most obvious one, I think, is my wife, Michelle. She was a recruiter at AQUINT and then she
00:22:52
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was the person responsible for the Melbourne business. And at the point that she took that job up, there was only one other person in the business and she grew A Quint Melbourne to 24 people, I think. So she had full pain or responsibility. And then our son was born and she returned part-time in a training role, which wasn't very satisfying for her.
00:23:14
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So she left and went to Hallmark Cards in internal recruitment, ultimately progressed into an HR role and then finished up being appointed Head of HR for Hallmark Cards in Australia. She's progressed on to other HR roles and ultimately it's worked for her. She did really well in agency recruitment and she enjoyed it.
00:23:37
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And now she's had just as many years, actually more years now out. So she's one example, Alistair Shermer. I first met Al when he was at Clicks IT recruitment about 20 years ago.
00:23:50
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And since leaving Clickser, I think Alistair might've been there maybe three or four years. And then he's worked variously for Seek, for Live Hire. He now works with TQ Solutions in a very senior role there. They're a, I'd call them a talent consultancy. They work mainly with large corporates around recruitment and talent.
00:24:14
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So I think ours pretty good example there Ariane Reese. She was an agency recruiter for I think 8 or 9 or 10 years. She did wreck to wreck and then she joined people to people.
00:24:29
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for, I think, an internal recruitment and training role, and she's now the head of people and culture. And that's not uncommon, where you'll find people that have done quite a bit of recruitment consulting work have then progressed into an internal HR or L&D role. So Ariane would just be one example of which there are a few. Do you know, or have you got examples, people in your world?
00:24:57
Speaker
that's both the examples you're talking about there of people going into internal roles or into out of agency, into vendor type roles is a bit of the indication of, I guess the answer to this question, what can you do with your career? There's lots of other pathways, but I hate to say it seems to be that a lot of people end up out of the standard recruitment
00:25:21
Speaker
industry agency space. So it's something maybe our industry needs to think about in terms of really kind of normalizing what I would call the kind of non-management leader. So what else could a top performing recruiter do in your business if they don't want to manage a team? Are you having those conversations? Don't assume that because people are great recruiters that they want to take on a team leadership role. There's all sorts of reasons why people don't want to do that. So what other pathways could you provide?
00:25:49
Speaker
for your team if that's the case, but I think as an industry we need to maybe do better at that. I think also not putting the pressure on the person to want to be a manager as soon as that person's manager or the agency owner thinks that they should be. Some people are a slow burn, some people it just takes longer for them to feel comfortable
00:26:10
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in being a leader or a formal leader. And certainly, I've been approached now and again by people who ask me exactly that question. I'm sort of being pressured, or the next step in my agency is to be a formal leader. And I'm not really sure about that. And they said binary, yes or no, but I think there's a third option, which is not now. Like maybe in the future, it's a not now option.
00:26:37
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And I really want to get better at being a high-performing recruiter and then potentially becoming a leader. And I think that's something that I'd suggest to all agency owners, just because someone has declined to progress to a leadership role when you first offered it to them or talked to them about it, doesn't mean there are no forever. They could just be someone that needs a little bit more time. And that little bit more time could be a year or two or three, but nurture them because when they're ready, they'll be really ready.
Podcast engagement and listener interaction
00:27:07
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and certainly provide that support and training. Obviously, with us two as trainers, we would say that a lot of leaders are going into the role unprepared, and that's that feeling of delay as well. So have the conversations, have them often, and make sure you're supporting your good people into the pathway that they want to take.
00:27:25
Speaker
And I think really as a summary for me, Adele, was that yes, it was a very difficult step up, but I'm really glad that I ultimately took that step up and it gave me a whole range of experiences that prepared me for what I do now and also to share with other people about the benefits of being an agency leader and that's something
00:27:53
Speaker
No, people are immediately present to the difficulties and think about the difficulties rather than the potential long term benefits. So that's just what I'd leave people with. Yeah, you're definitely going to gain a lot of skills and experience that's going to help you, I guess, regardless of where you decide to end up. Hopefully answered your question. Hey, are you liking listening to our podcast Recruitment News Australia?
00:28:17
Speaker
If you are, it would really help if you could give Ross Kleiner 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 favorite episode. And thanks for listening.