Fishing for flexibility from the talent pool

As firms start thinking about their strategy post-recession, organisations must look to their new recruits to drive their business forward in the future. DeeDee Doke investigates what qualities these candidates need

In a recent set of surveys conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, transferable/flexible skills topped the list of key attributes that job candidates should demonstrate in the current economic climate.

“Overall, HR professionals considered flexibility in terms of skills and organisational fit as more important for potential applicants to demonstrate than more traditional achievements, such as qualifications and technical and professional knowledge,” the CIPD said in the resulting paper, ‘What skills make people marketable in a recession’.

But flexibility will also be the most sought after ingredient in job applicants’ blends of skills as the UK emerges from the grip of recession. Recruitment professionals say adaptability to change and mental agility will be the ‘must-have’ qualities across industries ranging from telecommunications to pharmacies as employers once again seek to grow, instead of chop back, their workforces.

Rebecca Knape - We want to know, is this person comfortable with change? Is this person going to come into the business and embrace change? If not, that person won’t enjoy their job

Rebecca Knape - We want to know, is this person comfortable with change? Is this person going to come into the business and embrace change? If not, that person won’t enjoy their job

Adding services or products to an organisation’s offerings, reshaping a business and the blending of jobs across professional disciplines are all among the reasons that adaptability, along with market awareness, will be in such high demand for future recruits. For some organisations, the economic downturn became the catalyst for action; it provided a wake-up call that their operations needed a surge of revitalisation and strategies had to be rethought.

At a global telecommunications company with a presence in the UK, the wake-up call to focus on the future was first reflected in its redundancy decisions. Technical experts who were “great at their job” but lacked the vision to see new ways of approaching their work were reluctantly let go. “In downsizing, we had to look at what people bring to the organisation, and not just how they performed in their roles. We have to have people who can change,” explains an HR executive in that business, who asked to remain anonymous. “Have we declared it formally? Probably not. But it was discussed at the highest levels.

“It’s about people who have the mental agility to do what needs to be done rather than follow a process,” the HR executive continues. “The days of people just doing their job is no longer an option. We need thought leaders who will push forward disruptive ideas.”

Post recession, employers will also look for “a track record of succeeding” when times were bad, says Graeme Read, group managing director of recruiter Antal International Network. “They’re going to be looking for people who have had their heads up during the recession. People who can do it in a difficult market can do 10 times as much when times are good.”

Graeme Read - They’re going to be looking for people who’ve had their heads up during the recession. Those who can do it in a difficult market can do 10 times as much when times are good

Graeme Read - They’re going to be looking for people who’ve had their heads up during the recession. Those who can do it in a difficult market can do 10 times as much when times are good


However, the omnipresence of change on the UK’s business landscape is also dictating how firms must “adapt or die”. Paul Daley, director, HR Consulting and Services at recruitment outsource and talent management firm Ochre House, says that in today’s world, 60% of jobs are unique to a particular organisation. “Today, every company tends to differentiate in some way. In the old world, companies were homogeneous -regardless of whether you worked at Ford or Volkswagen, the roles and responsibilities would be the same,” Daley says. “Try that in an IT services business today - take an account manager from one organisation to another, and the role will need to change.”

The biggest factor affecting the need for change, in Daley’s view, is the two-year average life cycle of products and services, down from the previous 40 years. “That’s pretty dramatic change,” he says. Look at how a business like retailer Tesco has developed over the last decade, he adds, evolving from a supermarket chain to “like a mini high street within a high street. The rate at which they’ve reinvented themselves is pretty dramatic”.

However, the capacity for business agility is not limited to economic monoliths such as Tesco. Small maverick organisations like Opus Energy, the Northampton-based electricity supplier to the business sector, depend on their agility to win major clients like retailer John Lewis, as Opus Energy did recently.

Paul Daley - Today, every company tends to differentiate in some way. In the old world, companies were homogeneous — regardless where you worked, the roles would be the same

Paul Daley - Today, every company tends to differentiate in some way. In the old world, companies were homogeneous — regardless where you worked, the roles would be the same

The company’s year-on-year growth, in spite of the recession, saw Opus Energy’s workforce increase from 205 at the end of 2008 to the current 230. When recruiting new employees, HR manager Rebecca Knape says the company must always look to the future and evolving customer requirements.

“Flexibility is absolutely key,” Knape says. “And that’s something we probe quite heavily in the interview. We want to know, is this person comfortable with change? Is this person going to come into the business and embrace change? If not, that person won’t enjoy their job.”

Healthcare would seem recession proof, but Lloydspharmacy experienced its own economic downturn of sorts in 2007. The NHS, traditionally its biggest customer, embarked on reforms that affected Lloyds and other UK pharmacies in terms of both finances and the services they were required to provide. “We’ve probably had more change in the last two years than in the last 15,” says Barbara Sutherland, Lloydspharmacy’s head of capability.

Under the changes, Lloydspharmacy had to develop new income streams and its pharmacists must engage more with customers than before as part of broadening pharmacies’ community health care remit. So along with professional pharmaceutical skills and qualifications, Sutherland seeks in her new recruits business acumen, relationship-building skills and the adaptability to marry the other two qualities. Since the changes took hold, Lloydspharmacy has recruited “about 15 to 20% of our [current] workforce”.

And the pharmacy group continues on a five-year transformation programme. “We’re still changing,” Sutherland says. “Change is not a one-off thing; it’s something you have to continue to do as a business.”

Barbara Sunderland - We’ve probably had more change in the last two years than in the last 15. Change is not a one-off thing; it’s something you have to continue to do as a business

Barbara Sutherland - We’ve probably had more change in the last two years than in the last 15. Change is not a one-off thing; it’s something you have to continue to do as a business

Leaving the recession behind will not put an end to employers’ counting their pennies or looking for innovative cost-saving efficiencies. Continuing concerns over costs, as well as the reshaping of businesses, will lead to the blending of two, even three roles, even across disciplines - requiring those who take on such jobs to have a lot of adaptability and mental agility, suggests interim resourcing consultant Virginia Begg, who has in-house experience with FTSE 100 companies.

Ironically, HR workers in large corporates are highly likely to encounter this situation because so many organisations see HR as “a huge cost base”, Begg says. Organisational design and talent management roles are likely candidates for blending, she predicts. Most emphasis will be placed on hiring someone experienced in the discipline causing the organisation the greatest “pain point” at the moment, she says. Then the person hired will need to adapt to all of the job requirements by picking up the essentials of the other job or jobs.

“What the recession has done is focus people on what they have to change and think about what they are going to do next,” says Begg. “The organisations that will survive are the ones looking ahead. That’s where recruiters should be involved.”

power points

  • Change takes time — regardless of the workforce’s adaptability, says Lloydspharmacy’s Barbara Sutherland. “It can’t be rushed or it doesn’t embed.”
  • Employers of accountants are now looking for candidates with good interrelationship skills to “almost repair the damage” hardline beancounters have done during the recession in “laying down the law” about cutting costs, says Graeme Read, group MD of recruiter Antal International Network.
  • Financial services employers will look for candidates who will “embody the values of honesty, integrity, tenacity and resilience” to customers in the wake of the recession, says Virginia Begg. “They will be selling to a marketplace that really won’t believe in them,” she adds. “Financial services will have to work on their employment brands to even attract people to work for them.”

Next Issue: What does the future hold for the recruitment industry?

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