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Episode 42
348 Plays11 months ago
News for 18 December 2023 and Question of the Week: 'Are women in recruitment getting a fair go when it comes to leadership?'
#rna #recruitmentnewsaustralia #recruitmentpodcast
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Transcript
Decline in Job Ads
00:00:07
Speaker
I'm Ross Clannett and this is the news for the week beginning 18th December 2023. According to SEEK's most recent employment report, job ad volumes fell 4.3% month on month in November. They are now 20.2% lower year on year, but 13.6% higher compared to November 2019.
00:00:28
Speaker
Consulting and strategy had the largest national sector fall in November with a 18.7% decline. And on an individual state and sector basis, real estate and property in Victoria recorded the largest individual month-on-month decline with a 14% drop. Applications per job ad continue to grow, rising 2.9% month-on-month in October and are now on par with the October 2019 result.
00:00:56
Speaker
Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 3.8% in October to 3.9% in November, primarily driven by the participation rate rising to a new high, according to ABS labour force data released last Thursday. In November, total employed people increased by 61,500, total unemployed people rose 18,800, while the participation rate climbed 0.2 percentage points to 67.2%.
00:01:26
Speaker
National employment growth equated to an average of 1,209 new jobs created each day, every day of the year for the past 12 months. The Jobs and Skills Australia Internet Vacancy Index reported 259,500 vacancies in November 2023, a 0.3% month-on-month decline and a 6.6% year-on-year decline.
Conman Luke Hemings
00:01:50
Speaker
Serial conman Luke Hemings, owner of Coceptive Recruitment and White Fox Recruitment in Canberra,
00:01:56
Speaker
has fled to southeast Queensland and now operates White Fox recruitment in Southport. Hemings, also known as, variously, Dean Broadbelt, Harrison Isles, Dean Massillon, Nick Lloyd or Clay O'Connor admitted in 2015 to ripping off creditors in hundreds of thousands of unpaid fees and failed ventures.
00:02:17
Speaker
His past dealings have included promoting and selling tickets to bogus music festivals, hiring camera equipment, hotel rooms, limousines and services for small businesses on false work accounts, and luring teens out of school and work with the promise of a dream career before leaving them high and dry. Hemings, then known as Dean Broadbelt, sent a press release to the national media informing them of his death in 2015, as angry creditors from a music festival he promoted were hounding him for payment.
00:02:46
Speaker
When Hemings was discovered to be alive, he denied sending the email. In November 2018, Hemings pled guilty to a charge of using a carriage service to menace, harass and offend after he called a personal trainer known to him at 1.44am in the morning and allegedly said, I want your dick, how big is it, before the victim hung up. Hemings made further calls to the victim two days later. The charge against Hemings was dismissed on mental health grounds at a Sydney local court.
00:03:17
Speaker
A July 2023 post on the White Fox recruitment website states, With nearly four years of blazing a trail in the recruitment industry, a string of accolades and global recognition, it's been an illustrious journey. Luke Hemings, the Wiley and pioneering MD, has decided it's time for a new chapter for White Fox recruitment. From humble beginnings as a one-man operation in 2019, White Fox became a tour de force in Canberra's recruitment scene
00:03:41
Speaker
bolstering local businesses with an impressive database of over 7,800 top-tier candidates. The Tylus team worked magic, helping businesses bloom while propelling White Fox to the forefront of the recruitment industry. Its slick operations even earned the gong of Most Efficient Recruitment Agency Asia Pacific region at the recent Australian Enterprise Awards.
00:04:02
Speaker
Another post from the White Fox Recruitment website in August states, We are related to announce that White Fox Recruitment has once again demonstrated its unparalleled prowess in the recruitment domain by securing the title of Most Efficient Recruitment Agency Australia and US at the esteemed Corporate America Today Awards. This recognition, closely following our earlier winners Most Efficient Recruitment Agency Asia Pacific, affirms our standing as a trailblazing recruitment firm on an international scale.
00:04:32
Speaker
A search of the corporate America today website finds no mention of White Fox recruitment. The Murdoch media recently ran stories across a number of their local mastheads reporting on Hemings move to the Gold Coast and the placing into administration of one of the companies behind White Fox recruitment.
RCSA Leadership Update
00:04:50
Speaker
The 2024 RCSA board officer holders were announced this week. Directly supporting new RCSA president Penny O'Reilly for manpower,
00:05:00
Speaker
our New Zealand Vice President, Ian McPherson from Enterprise Recruitment, and Australia Vice President, Natasha Olsen-Cito from On Talent. Matthew Sampson from Aspect Personnel is Finance Director, and the remaining six director roles have been filled by Tara Storitzky, Switch Education, Catherine O'Marnie from On Queue Recruitment, Jason Elias from Elias Recruitment, Matthew Ostini from Technical Resources, Erin Devlin from People to People,
00:05:28
Speaker
David Stewart from Alliance Australia. The US labor market beat expectations and gained 199,000 non-farm jobs in November with economists surveyed by Bloomberg expecting a gain of only 185,000 jobs as the national unemployment rate in the United States declined 3.7% from October's 3.9%.
00:05:50
Speaker
November's increase of 199,000 jobs was also larger than the increase of 150,000 jobs in October, based on revised numbers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The gain in November is below the average monthly increase of 240,000 new jobs over the prior 12 months.
00:06:09
Speaker
Most new jobs were produced in the healthcare, government, manufacturing and hospitality sectors, further consolidating the continued job sunshine for blue-collar workers amidst the more gloomy conditions for many white-collar occupations, especially those in the tech and consulting sectors.
US Labor Market Report
00:06:25
Speaker
Those without a high school degree saw a 5.7% rise in employment levels this year, well above the national average employment growth rate of 1.1%.
00:06:37
Speaker
Labor market conditions in the US are expected to cool in 2024 with a share of respondents in the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey reporting difficulty in finding a job had reached its highest level since March 2021.
00:06:51
Speaker
The conference board senior economist said, looking ahead, we project that job growth will continue slowing and forecast job losses will start in the second quarter of 2024, with the unemployment rate rising to 4.3% by the second half of 2024. healthier nights co-founders Marcus Lynch and Lincoln Benbow have completed their respective earn out periods after their sale to ASX listed people in in 2018.
00:07:22
Speaker
Benbow announced respective departures from the group they founded in 2007 in a LinkedIn post last week. At the time of the 2019 acquisition, people in paid Lynch and Benbow $13.5 million cash with a three year earn out of up to $8.25 million payable in people in ordinary shares over three tranches based on the healthier nights business achieving agreed EBITDA hurdles for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial years.
00:07:52
Speaker
At the time of the 2019 sale, Healthier Nights had 55 staff. The Healthier Nights website currently lists 59 employees. The OECD unemployment rate was broadly stable at an estimated 4.85% in October 2023, compared to September's estimated rate of 4.82%.
00:08:12
Speaker
The rate has remained below 5% since July 2022. Overall, the unemployment rate rose in 14 OECD countries in October, was unchanged in nine and declined in 10 countries. The number of unemployed persons in the OECD increased to 33.4 million in October, its highest level since 2023. A horticulture provider has been issued a total penalty of $617,916.
Labor Hire Law Penalty
00:08:43
Speaker
the highest in Australian history for breaches of labour hire law following a labour hire authority prosecution in the Supreme Court of Victoria. AL Star Express Proprietary Limited was found to have knowingly contravened the labour hire licensing act by repeatedly providing workers without holding a labour hire license. The company supplied the workers through an intermediary to three separate businesses and directly to another business to perform horticulture work in regions including Rosebud, Coorup, Torquay and Devon Meadows.
00:09:13
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The court issued penalties for each of the four contraventions of the Act and considered the conduct as a whole to award the significant total penalty. In its judgment, the court noted that the contraventions must be characterized as serious and that the penalty needs to be sufficiently high, not to be the price of doing business. Labor High Licensing Commissioner Steve Dargaval said the judgment showed the importance of Labor High Licensing and the significant potential penalties for non-compliance with the Act.
PwC's Diversity Initiative
00:09:42
Speaker
In a bid to foster greater diversity and inclusion, PwC in the UK last week announced a change to its recruitment processes. In a statement, the Big Four firm said it was expanding its talent pool by growing its apprenticeships, school leaver programs, work experience placements and degree partnerships. This strategic shift is aimed at ensuring that students without a university degree have the same access to opportunities as their university-educated counterparts, the firm said.
00:10:09
Speaker
By providing equal opportunities to all, regardless of their educational background, PwC said it wants to set a precedent for other professional services firms in diversity and inclusion. I'm Adele Last and your news is up to date for the week beginning the 18th of December, 2023. This is our last podcast for the year and we thank you very much for your support. We will be back on the 9th of January with a special summer series.
00:10:37
Speaker
Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or via our website at www.recruitmentnewsaustralia.com.au. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a restful break over summer. And we look forward to you joining us again in 2024.
Gender Disparity in Leadership
00:11:00
Speaker
Question of the week this week is, are women in recruitment getting a fair go?
00:11:06
Speaker
When it comes to leadership, this was prompted by an article that you found recently, Ross, with some very interesting statistics. Will you share that with us? Sure, Dale. It's from Staffing Industry Analysts and last week they released insights on gender parity in the US staffing industry 2023. And here's what the data says.
00:11:34
Speaker
Women accounted for 36% of staffing firm founders and 40% of CEO positions. Commercial staffing had the highest representation at 37% being women, followed by healthcare staffing where
00:11:50
Speaker
the CEO or MD was 36% of those businesses. When the founder of the company was a woman, 84% of CEOs were female. Conversely, only 17% of CEOs were female if the founder of the staffing firm was a man. Now, prompted by that, I decided to do a bit of research and was very unscientific, but I looked at sort of
00:12:17
Speaker
25 kind of largest or close to largest recruitment businesses in Australia. It's not an exact science. And I looked at was the CEO or managing director, a man or a woman. And Adele, I have one very short list and one very long list. Do you think that's good news for women who are listening or not? Oh, I'm dying to know. Ross, tell me, what's the short list?
00:12:44
Speaker
The shortlist, unfortunately, was women who are CEOs or managing directors of large, large-ish staffing businesses in Australia. So we have Susie McInerney at Six Degrees Executive, Penny O'Reilly at Manpower, Rebecca Hartshorn at Launch, Tamara Riff at Clicks IT Recruitment, Alison Watts at Hoban, and then a programmed
00:13:12
Speaker
They actually don't have a country CEO, but they have three CEOs in the business. And one of those CEO health professionals is Jennifer Boulding. So that's the short list. Do you want to hear the long list? The long list. Yeah. Okay. So in random order, these recruitment or staffing businesses in Australia have a man as the managing director or CEO.
00:13:40
Speaker
Adecco, Hayes, Michael Page, RGF Staffing, that's the old Chandler McLeod, Talent International, Finite, Ignite, People2People, although People2People have managing directors in each of the states and five of their managing directors are women, including the New Zealand business. Anyway, let's go back to the long list. Hudson, Davidson, Randstad,
00:14:10
Speaker
Sharpen Carter, Drake, People In, Ambition, Wavelength International, Robert Walters, Robert Half and Workpack all have a man as CEO or managing director. What do you think about that Adele? Shocked or not? Really sad story Ross, really sad story today with that news and those statistics and you know I think it is consistent
00:14:36
Speaker
with my own knowledge and experience in the industry I have only ever worked for one actually Alison Watts you mentioned and I worked for her for a period at Hoban she's the only female CEO that I've worked for what about in your own experience? I have not worked for a female CEO nor when I was an employee in any of the four recruitment businesses was a woman a CEO although I have reported to women
00:15:06
Speaker
at non-CEO roles. So yeah, our own experiences probably reflect the broader industry. Why do you think this is, Adele? Why aren't more women CEOs or MDs of large or largish recruitment agencies or staffing businesses in this country? There's obviously a huge number of factors there, but there's a couple that come to mind when I think about that. It's obviously around family responsibilities and the time
00:15:36
Speaker
that's taken out of your career, if you are taking time for maternity leave or to step away to raise a family or care for family, that idea around the opportunity being presented to you as a woman, as opposed to sort of chasing it down. I think taking a passive approach to opportunity is to our own detriment. And the self-delt kind of imposter syndrome, I hear a lot of women talk about that in our industry. A lot of my female clients will talk to me about that.
00:16:06
Speaker
And that's something that I think is a huge factor in this as well. Well, there is some good news. The RCSA have just elected as their national president, Penny O'Reilly. And that is the third woman in a row to be elected president of the RCSA. So that is good news. And we have Leslie, who's the CEO of AppsGo.
00:16:34
Speaker
So from a industry leadership point of view, I think there's certainly some good news. But in my experience, I think the most important thing we can do, besides talk about it and make sure that it's seen as an issue, is that we have to ensure that when a woman decides to have a family and leaves to have a baby,
00:17:00
Speaker
that she's not forgotten about. That there's constant contact, there's training opportunities provided or offered to her that she's seen as a potential candidate for leadership roles as they come up, even if she's on maternity leave. I think being much more proactive about women who are on maternity leave to really send a very clear message that they're important.
00:17:30
Speaker
They're valued and they want it back in the business and that if they want flexibility, then that will be available for them because their skills, their presence, their competencies are wanted and needed inside the business. I think that is critical and I doubt that's going on. Good point you make there around the flexibility piece because I think it's one thing to have flexible leave arrangements and
00:17:59
Speaker
do what you're saying in terms of keeping in touch with women and letting them know that they can come back. But I think it's about also understanding how to adapt the business and adjust the business because that's a key factor in your consideration around returning. How will I make this work? Because your life is completely different from that point on. And so how do you go back to just plug back into the old role? And it's virtually impossible thing to think about. So I think organizations need to address that element as well and ask the question. Don't assume it.
00:18:28
Speaker
Ask the question of what people need and try and be as flexible as you can to retain this top talent. I'm really proud to say that's something that I've done in my leadership roles. When I've worked in recruitment, I worked, when I worked at Horner, we had 50% of our workforce as people who were working part time, mostly women, a few dads in there as well. Choosing to work part time, we made flexible arrangements around it. We adapted the business to fit and work.
00:18:54
Speaker
around it and we were able to attract some great talent of people who weren't able to go back to their original employer in the industry. So some serious change needs to happen can be done, but you're right, addressing the maternity leave element and more importantly, the return to work element of someone going back into the workforce is really important.
00:19:15
Speaker
Because another piece of data from that research shows that 66% of women in the US, sorry, 66% of employees in the US staffing industry are women. And I suspect it would be a fairly similar percentage in Australia. So it's not just a majority, it's actually a large majority of the employees in our industry are women.
00:19:43
Speaker
And that makes that very short list versus the very long list that I read out earlier, very concerning because that is a massive drop off in terms of a pipeline of women leaders going all the way to the top. And that's something we do need to change. We do need to sort out and we need to sort out, I think in the very near future.
Impact of Female Leadership in Recruitment
00:20:05
Speaker
And there's some further data from that article around why if you have, if that isn't enough motivation,
00:20:12
Speaker
Some further data around net promoter scores, correct Ross, around businesses that have female leaders versus male? That's right. And let me read you the stats. So average net promoter score of businesses where there was a female CEO, 83. Average net promoter score of recruitment businesses where the CEO was a man, 47.
00:20:42
Speaker
83 to 47, and employee satisfaction, companies headed by women in our industry, 87% average satisfaction rate in terms of employee ratings, 77% if the staffing company CEO was a man. So they're pretty comprehensive pieces of data in favor of women CEOs.
00:21:08
Speaker
So hopefully we have prompted some thinking for you around that question. Are women in recruitment getting a fair go when it comes to leadership? The data and statistics show us that the answer is no, but we would like to challenge our listeners to have a really good think about this and address it. Reach out to us and contact us if you have a story you'd like to share. Negative, I suppose, or positive around your journey in leadership in recruitment as a female.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yes, encourage you to get in touch. Contact Adele directly or myself directly via LinkedIn is probably the easiest and we'd love to hear your story either on or off the record.