Reap big rewards from small recruitment changes
Date published:
The Chamber’s latest column for The Journal by Rhiannon Bearne, executive director of policy and representation
Last Friday we published our latest quarterly economic survey of business conditions and business sentiment. Drawn from the responses of nearly 150 firms, as well as charities and other third sector organisations, the findings present one of the best snapshots of real-time economic data out there. 141 businesses responded, 78.6% were worried about labour costs and 26% were manufacturing firms – but in amongst all the numbers, what was the big story for the region?
Firstly, it’s that, after a really difficult couple of years business confidence is starting to return. Businesses are feeling much more optimistic about their future profitability and turnover than they have done for several quarters. While inflation and staff costs are still worries, the proportion of respondents identifying them as problem has diminished considerably from the peaks seen across 2022.
Exports and investment trends have both ticked up, key indicators of business and economic health. But before we get too jolly, 50% of firms are still reporting staffing shortages, with full-time, permanent staff identified as the toughest group to secure. This has been a consistent picture over the last 24 months.
That’s why the North East Chamber has just launched our new report looking at inclusive employment. The report, built on case studies and thinking from the best of the North East’s public, private and voluntary sectors, outlines some of simple changes that employers can make to expand the pool they can recruit from. As my colleague Aneela Ali, executive director of finance and corporate services, says in her foreword, thinking about staffing slightly differently can unlock significant reserves of untapped talent.
This could mean simple changes like adapting your recruitment practices to include a greater variety of life skills and experience. Or, for bigger employers, developing in-house support services to help people with caring responsibilities to get work that works for them. For international firm Sage, this has meant recognising the way in which new ways of thinking and working that include people’s experience of neurodiversity – conditions like dyslexia or autism – can bring. As Vici Richardson, chief executive officer at Disability North put so well in the report: “recruiting people with the right values is one of the biggest contributors to high performance”.
Here at the Chamber, we’re working for a stronger, fairer North East. We’re doing that on the back of great businesses and unlocking our fantastic reserves of talent. We’re bringing together the numbers and the stories to show a region which really works.