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Episode 28
403 Plays1 year ago
News for the week beginning 11 September 2023 and Question of the week: "Can a leader without agency experience succeed in a recruitment agency?"
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Transcript
Weekly News Overview
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the news for the week beginning the 11th of September 2023.
Albanese Government Reforms Delayed
00:00:13
Speaker
Small businesses have been given some breathing room before the next tranche of industrial relations reforms becomes law after the Senate voted to push a report on the Albanese government's closing loopholes bill into 2024. Seeking to pass the new industrial relations reforms before Parliament breaks over Christmas,
00:00:31
Speaker
The government pushed for the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee to table its report on the lengthy legislation in late November. However, coalition senators successfully partnered with the crossbench to set the reporting date back to the 1st of February next year. A move the opposition said would give the committee more time to investigate the bill and its potential consequences.
Key Features of IR Package
00:00:53
Speaker
The extensive IR package includes legislation that would criminalise wage theft at a federal level, refresh the legal definition of casual work and impose new powers to the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for employee-like forms of work in the gig economy, among other major updates.
NZ Job Growth: Auckland's Surge
00:01:14
Speaker
In New Zealand, Auckland led the way for job growth on a regional basis for the 12-month period, July 2022 to June 2023, with a rise of 4.3%, ahead of Bay of Plenty up 3.3%, according to the latest data from Stats NZ. Bi-sector accommodation and food services grew the fastest in the same period, up 8.4%, with transport postal and warehousing the next highest, up 7.7%.
Business NSW Survey: Hiring Trends
00:01:44
Speaker
On a month-on-month basis, total jobs in New Zealand grew 0.3% in July 2023, from June 2023 to 2.38 million jobs. A recent survey by Business NSW indicated a downbeat note for future hiring intentions, although business confidence had improved slightly from the previous survey three months ago.
00:02:06
Speaker
Of the 1002 responses to the business condition survey, which was conducted during the first two weeks of August, nearly a quarter or 23% of respondents were expecting to cut staff within the next three months, with just 15% predicting they will be growing headcount. 62% of those surveyed expect no change in their staff numbers. The headline business confidence index rebounded to negative 68.2 in the third quarter.
00:02:36
Speaker
from negative 70.8 in the previous quarter.
SEEK Job Ads Decline
00:02:41
Speaker
SEEK Australia's National Employment Report for August recorded job ads declined 1.8% month on month and 20.5% year on year. On a month by month basis by state, Tasmania recorded the largest decline with 10%, followed by South Australia dropping 4.4%.
00:03:01
Speaker
Of the 10 largest sectors by job ad volume, ICT headed the list of biggest declines with a month-on-month drop of 4.2%. On a year-on-year basis, hospitality and tourism took the top drop spot with a decrease of 41%. Applications per job ad climbed by 6.5% from July to August after increases of 4.4% and 4.6% in the previous two months.
Guan Yu Wage Fraud Scandal
00:03:30
Speaker
A woman who masterminded a wage cheating group in China fraudulently juggled separate jobs with 16 different companies simultaneously until she was undone by a suspicious employer.
00:03:42
Speaker
Guan Yu's scam came to an end when she was arrested during a job interview, a typical situation where she would take photos and share them on work group chats to trick her multiple employers into thinking that she was meeting with clients. To keep track of her intricate racket, Yu kept detailed paper records of essential information, including start dates, job titles and bank account numbers for each of her positions. Yu's husband has been exposed as her co-conspirator in the fraud.
00:04:11
Speaker
The couple's nefarious scheme was exposed in January this year when one of Yu's employers, frustrated with her poor performance, discovered paperwork discrepancies and reported his suspicions to the police. An investigation discovered a flow of dodgy funds listed as salaries ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of Yuan into different bank accounts. Eventually 53 members of Yu's wage cheating criminal group were arrested. The total amount involved in the case exceeded 50 million Yuan.
00:04:41
Speaker
or the equivalent of around 10 million Australian dollars.
AI Usage: Indian Enthusiasm vs. Western Caution
00:04:46
Speaker
Employees in India appear to be heading their Western counterparts in the use of and excitement of AI in their jobs. A Randstad Global Survey reported that 56% of Indian employees say they are currently using AI in their work. Far higher than those surveyed in Australia, 32%, US 29%, Germany 24% and the UK 24%.
00:05:09
Speaker
The Work Monitor Pulse Survey of 7,000 employees around the world reported that 74% of respondents in India said they were excited about the prospect of AI in the workplace, more than twice the rate of workers in Germany. At the same time, workers in India expressed the greatest apprehension about the impact of AI on their jobs, with 52% saying they are concerned. Conversely, German workers were least concerned at 33%.
00:05:35
Speaker
Artificial Intelligence was the third most popular area nominated by respondents when asked what sort of development they wanted at work. Management and leadership skills ranked top, followed by well-being and mindfulness. When asked to nominate what they valued most at work, Gen Z nominated Allen D, whereas Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers each ranked flexible work at the top. temporary help employment in the United States fell for the seventh consecutive month in August,
00:06:04
Speaker
with the number of temp jobs declining by 18,900 to a total of more than 2.9 million.
00:06:11
Speaker
Temp jobs were down 5.9% on a year-on-year basis. They have decreased by 242,000 jobs since their peak in March last year.
US Employment Statistics Update
00:06:24
Speaker
The US unemployment rate rose to 3.8% in August from 3.5% in July, although total non-farm employment rose by 187,000 jobs, a bigger increase than the 157,000 new jobs added in July.
00:06:40
Speaker
Average hourly earnings for all US employees on non-farm payrolls rose to $33.82, representing a 4.3% increase over the past 12 months.
Unloan's Work Practice Controversy
00:06:52
Speaker
On loan, the digital mortgage startup owned by Commonwealth Bank is facing accusations of unfair workplace practices from a former employee who has taken the matter to the Federal Court. According to the applicant, he was made to work up to 60 hours a week
00:07:07
Speaker
across multiple roles while working at Unloan. He also alleged he was made redundant after making a complaint with HR. According to the Australian Financial Review, the employee's contract specified a 38-hour work week. However, he alleges being made to work every day of the week, which would sometimes come to 60 hours. The claim states the bank violated fair work standards by retaliating against him when he expressed concern about the increasing responsibilities back in November.
00:07:34
Speaker
According to the applicant, he met with an HR rep in November regarding the unclear nature of his role and the associated frustrations. He went on to claim that he was rejected for a promotion back in October despite working across two roles, and he also alleged that CBA breached its enterprise bargaining agreement by failing to consult with him before he was made redundant in March with only three days' notice.
Agency Experience in Recruitment Leadership
00:08:06
Speaker
So Adil, this week, our question of the week, can a leader without agency experience succeed in a recruitment agency? What do you think? Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think you think about recruitment and the sales aspect of it. And there's research that suggests that sales leaders most sort of successful
00:08:32
Speaker
impact to a team is being able to unstick that pipeline. Having the technical understanding of the job and being able to work with people in a sales capacity or recruitment consultants in this example to be able to see where things are going to come unstuck or removing those roadblocks and those kind of things. So I think having that agency
00:08:58
Speaker
knowledge is important even just to be able to demonstrate you know the job lead by example those kind of things you know are really important when you think about things like taking a job brief you know there are so many idiosyncrasies that we learn along the way having done the job ourselves having made the mistakes ourselves that if you're going to lead others to do that I think it's really important that you know that you've done it before in order to be able to lead properly and solve those issues for your staff as well.
00:09:27
Speaker
I think if you have worked in an agency, it's going to improve your credibility as a leader of an agency. You're going to have knowledge not just of the job, but of the industry, of contacts, of the market. There's a certain level of knowledge that can't be easily replicated in a quick period of time. Hard to learn that side of it. Yeah, I've got lots of other things I'm thinking of. Ross, but tell me, what do you think?
00:09:55
Speaker
I certainly don't disagree with anything that you've said. I suppose there's a bit of a caveat in that it depends. So, for example, in the recruitment industry, we have had people who have joined a recruitment agency as a CEO from outside the industry and have succeeded.
00:10:16
Speaker
So if you think, well, a couple of people that I think, Nick McMahon, who joined Skilled after the founder's son, did a, let's say, less than stellar job as the CEO for a number of years. So Nick McMahon came in. He was previously from Kohl's and prior to that, I think Shell.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so he was able to turn that business around and I think certainly was well respected. Peter Acheson is another person. So Peter just recently left Channel McCloud.
00:10:51
Speaker
And Peter joined the recruitment industry. Oh, it's probably close to 20 years ago without any recruitment experience. He was at Optus as a sales exec, a senior sales exec, and he was able to progress through from being, I think he started as maybe a COO in Ambit and became the CEO and then ultimately CEO of PeopleBank. So he succeeded. So why did those people succeed? I don't know about Mick McBahn, but
00:11:21
Speaker
I know a bit about Peter. He knows how to ask the right questions. He knows how to judge someone's character. And those are certainly very important traits. And I would assert things that have definitely made a difference to his success as a CEO, CEO, good with resource management, understanding what resources his leaders need to help them succeed.
00:11:49
Speaker
And I suspect he's probably, I don't know this, but I suspect, again, where Peter's been successful and other people from outside the industry have been successful, they just come in looking at things differently. They don't have a preconceived idea. And so the likelihood of innovation is probably greater with people that don't have that existing recruitment agency paradigm. That's a really interesting angle, the innovation piece.
00:12:17
Speaker
Because, yeah, I guess there are more creative ways to solve things. We do get stuck sometimes in the, you know, this is how we've always done it, kind of mindset. But I really think for things like planning, strategic planning in particular, is likely to be more accurate if you've had recruitment experience. You're going to understand, as I said, your market and your industry really well. And even things like, you know, a temperature check of, you know, just listening to what staff are saying, you know, walking through the floor.
00:12:46
Speaker
You know, I always, as a leader previously, when I've managed recruitment agencies, always sat on the floor with my teams just to be able to hear what was going on, get that feel for what's happening in their day-to-day activities and see where things are going right and wrong. So without having that knowledge of, you know, hearing, overhearing a conversation and what sounds on the surface like it might be going well, underlyingly your recruitment knowledge and your spidey senses go off knowing something's not quite right and you get a better gauge of
00:13:15
Speaker
of what's going on and being able to plan and forecast for that better. Yeah, I certainly agree with that. And I'm just thinking about my own experience when I was a GM and I was reporting to a CEO that did not have recruitment agency experience. And to be quite frank, some of the things he came out with were just ridiculous, just not knowing what he was talking about. And actually, he just lacked curiosity. He just didn't
00:13:45
Speaker
seem to be interested in having a greater understanding of the business. He didn't ask why questions. He didn't seek to understand why certain decisions
00:13:57
Speaker
were made or not made and he would put forward things that he wanted done without asking people who'd been around what their view in terms of the potential pluses and minuses of that view. Now, I finished up leaving that business before he did, but certainly when he did leave, it was not because he was extremely successful and moving on to a bigger job. Let's just put it that way.
00:14:24
Speaker
So now you're coming to the other side of the fence and now I'm thinking about your side, that you're talking about bringing in those new ideas. I do recall myself again working with people from outside of the industry, particularly in a senior financial operations role. I worked with somebody who had limited recruitment experience and it was really refreshing, actually. It was really nice to work with somebody who didn't have those preconceived ideas and was able to ask
00:14:53
Speaker
us, but why? That was probably one of the most valuable questions she asked through the whole time. But why do we do this? But why is that the case? So, yeah, perhaps it is highly valuable, I think, to have, but maybe not essential. As you said, there is lots of examples of people you gave that have made it work. Yeah, looking at, I mean, Ignite, a company that have had
00:15:23
Speaker
succession of CEOs in the last few years. They've had a couple without industry experience. They've had someone more recently who had a lot of industry experience and none of them were really able to make a difference. So of course, another factor that we should say is, well, what's the overall health of the business? Like if someone's coming in from outside, do they not know enough in terms of the questions to ask, to understand?
00:15:52
Speaker
whether they might be, in fact, walking into a basket case. And it's not actually a factor that their lack of experience causes the business to fail. It's their lack of experience causes them to not ask enough questions to understand that they're walking into a hiding to nothing. And there's probably not much that they could have done to succeed. OK, so we kind of argue both sides of this. Any final conclusions?
00:16:19
Speaker
I think ultimately it depends upon the person and depends upon the specific job and the circumstances. And really shouldn't that be the mantra for any recruitment exercise at all? I agree. That's a wrap. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. Google, Apple, Spotify, or on our website.