A recruitment agency has expanded to meet enduring pandemic-related demand.
Darlington-based Recruitrite has opened a second office in Urlay Nook, near Stockton.
Having helped create four jobs, the business says the move will extend its market offer, secure new clients and further the roll out of its Rite People service, which offers firms specialised employment support.
Melissa Coutts, head of operations, said: “We experienced a huge demand in our services during the pandemic for a number of reasons, including people reassessing their work/life balance and businesses trying to catch up on orders delayed during the first lockdown.
“Recruiting new operational staff will enable us to maintain levels of service while starting to work with more businesses in the Tees Valley and beyond.
“We truly believe in what we do for our clients, and we’re passionate about delivering results for them.”
gives opportunities to develop skills and a career, and ideally provides a sense of fulfilment
provides a supportive environment with constructive relationships
allows for work-life balance
enables staff to be physically and mentally healthy
gives employees the voice and choice they need to shape their working lives
should be accessible to all.
Quarterly Economic Survey
With this is mind, and skills shortages a key barrier to success and staff costs a key concern, our most recent Quarterly Economic Survey asked additional questions on the actions being taken by respondents to recruit and retain the right people, primarily thinking about aspects of Good Work.
This chart shows the number of respondents out of 172 whose businesses had taken the following actions:
Implementing or promoting flexible working
72
Investing in training and development
88
Adjusting or improving pay
89
Adjusting or improving non-pay benefits
53
Focusing on health and wellbeing in the workplace
75
Focusing on providing an inclusive workplace
49
Looking at different methods of recruitment (e.g. using apprenticeships for the first time)
50
Focusing on environmental impact and sustainability
54
Connecting with your local community (e.g. through volunteering opportunities)
42
The results showed two clear tiers of activity, with adjusting or improving pay (89), investing in training and development (88), focusing on health and wellbeing (75) and implementing or promoting flexible working (72), favoured by 20-30 more respondents than the other options.
Roundtable
For the first time, we worked with our Quarterly Economic Survey associate sponsors Durham University Business School to conduct a qualitative investigation into the topics above. This came in the form of a roundtable hosted by Prof Jo McBride, Professor of Work and Employment Relations within the Business School’s Department of Management and Marketing.
The participants were given a broad overview of the quantitative findings of the survey, and presented with the top four actioned responses to recruitment and retention – adjusting or improving pay, investing in training and development, focusing on health and wellbeing, and implementing or promoting flexible working.
A roundtable participant from the transport sector said “Our customers were expecting a price hike… so we could actually increase our rates and then reflect that straight into our driver’s pay packets, which is what we’ve done, and that’s been enormously successful.” Because of this, it was stated that they were able to retain their best employees, stopping them from moving down South to seek higher pay.
Another participant, from the culture sector, stated that, while their business was not having a problem recruiting, they suspected that applications had decreased significantly due to low pay.
Investing in training and development
Many of the participants indicated that their organisations invested in training and development. “We’ve always done that to be fair, that’s one of our major growth areas and we’ve maintained that over the past few years” said someone from the transport sector.
Several participants highlighted a skills shortage, particularly of young workers lacking what they called ‘the basics’. “There’s a definite skills shortage. I definitely feel like some of the things that young people are getting trained in is a little too theory based and there’s not enough application,” said one participant from the digital sector. Despite this, young people are more than happy to learn these ‘basics’ through training, according to another participant in consultancy: “When I first started work, we were exposed to those opportunities to learn first-hand. And yet, when we go out and train, we do some really basic stuff and I meet young people who just can’t get enough of it.”
There were worries that young people’s lack of confidence could be a result of the pandemic leading to fewer opportunities for work experience, and even just the lack of face-to-face interaction throughout the lockdowns.
Some participants also expressed that the pandemic has been negatively impacting their own training programmes. “We’ve got a huge number of trainees entering the business … There’s an element of classroom training, but there’s a majority of being out there … That all stopped” said one participant from the transport sector, referring to the bottlenecking of trainees that the pandemic caused.
Focusing on health and wellbeing
Several participants emphasised their focus on health and wellbeing. “We’ve had health and wellbeing kiosks, we provide various different counselling services, physiotherapy, medicals… The support is there, it’s provided,” said one, while another said: “We are massive on health and wellbeing at the moment. Just this week we’ve endorsed a new domestic violence policy within our company.”
A few participants mentioned what they feel to be an increased lack of resilience, particularly for younger employees, meaning that health and wellbeing could be more important now than ever before. “People are being broken down a lot more easily. Mental health has kicked in significantly” said one.
Many of the participants indicated that their organisations had implemented flexible working, at least where they could, and indicated that the pandemic was a catalyst. “We do have an element of flexible working, but we’re quite limited as to how much we can offer”, said a participant from the transport sector, “From the management side of things, yeah absolutely there’s so much more flexibility in their roles now.” It appeared to be a crucial tool in recruitment and retention, and also useful when sick: “If someone gets a cough or cold and you feel you can work from home… It makes good sense.”
Despite this, remote working was also seen as a threat – a way for competitors from other regions to poach local talent. “My wife’s looking at roles in remote working because she can work remotely for a London-based company and she can get a crazy big salary. As a small agency owner, it makes me nervous because some of the workforce that are up here that are wanting to work remotely are now able to apply for jobs that are in other places that can afford to pay more,” said one participant.
Remote working was also seen as a threat to relationship-building that comes with working face-to-face. “When they’re wanting to work remotely, they’re not thinking about the team camaraderie, or the mental health aspect of actually being around people,” said a participant from the digital sector. “There’s a lot that goes with running a business when you’re bringing people in, and if they don’t want to be part of that culture that you want to grow teams around…”, they continued. While company culture is rightly a concern of employers, working from home doesn’t have to dilute your corporate culture.
Why are the other indicators not popular?
It is currently unclear why the other aspects of good work are being less used as a method of recruitment and retention. Adjusting or improving non-pay benefits will help you build a relationship with employees that they can’t get anywhere else, providing an inclusive workplace will increase your reputation and recruit from a larger pool of talent, a focus on sustainability is also shown to attract talent, and apprentices are said to be more loyal than non-apprentices.
Perhaps these methods are considered less effective at improving recruitment and retention, or it could be that businesses are doing some of these things, but not with recruitment or retention in mind. Further study could be interesting.
Barriers to Good Work
The main barrier to Good Work at the moment, it seems, is a lack of certainty. “We want to invest in people, but the confidence is so fragile, we’ve got customers saying ‘yes, no, yes, no, yes, no’ when they come to buy from us,” said one roundtable participant.
This seems to have especially impacted hiring practices for a few of our participants, with some of them sharing that they are currently hiring freelancers rather than hiring people part time, stating that freelancers get similar pay but have a better skillset and “don’t have all the additional tie-ins”. They found that potential part-timers, on the other hand, wanted to work fully remotely, and for more pay than they considered reasonable for their skills.
One participant also stated that their business no longer pays their freelancers in a ‘traditional’ way: “Historically it was ‘do 10 hours, charge 10 hours’, and now it’s ‘Come with us, we’re going to this client, this is a prospecting workshop … None of us in our business are going to get any money out of this … If we get a win from it, you’ll benefit from that win.’ People are really up for that which has really surprised me.”
This seems to be at odds with the concept of Good Work due to a possible lack of job security. Temporary and variable contracts are good for businesses in that they allow quick adaption to production or service demands, but workers’ experiences of these are mixed. While some workers value aspects of flexibility, others feel that they are largely within employers’ interests and instability can lead to poor outcomes for employees, including economic hardship, according to the CIPD.
The impact that job insecurity can do was indicated by another participant in the culture sector: “Freelancers have left the sector because they were left swinging in the wind with no support at all. They aren’t coming back, so the sector has shrunk in that regard. People have gone on to do teacher training and things, because of that insecurity, particularly people in the early stages of their careers.”
If demand did not fluctuate so much, this might not have been the path their business would have chosen, indicates another participant: “At the moment we’re working with freelancers that we can switch on and switch off, and that’s purely because- I’d love to get a young person in, I’d love to get a manager in, somebody with experience- but actually, the way that my business works, the fluctuation in demands we have, that risk just feels too great right now.” This coincides with the opinion that, sometimes, elements of Good Work might be lacking due to business necessity: “I think people are reacting so fast in business at the moment that they’re just, rightly, chasing the opportunities, going where the money is, and not necessarily taking their staff with them. And that’s not a criticism in the sense that they’ve done that deliberately – they’re looking to survive.”
HR Specialist Suzanne Burnsreveals some tips for how to get recruitment right in a tough market. Watch her video now or read the accompanying transcript below.
We are in very interesting times in a candidate led market. There are lots of jobs out there and candidates are asking ‘why would I join your company?’
They can pretty much pick and choose and you need to give a good amount of energy and focus to your recruitment process to attract the right candidates.
Outlined below are 5 key areas for you to follow – areas you need to be conscious of and to think about to make sure that you ‘speak to’ and attract the right candidates for your role AND to make sure they say YES to you!
5-point process
Clarity on
Attributes for the role you are recruiting for
Who you are ‘speaking to’
What you offer as an organisation
Platforms to advertise on
Networking
Review and Adjust
Interview process
Clarity around the role you are recruiting for
What it is that you are looking for:
Must-haves, and
desirables.
There’ll be some skills and experience that are necessary, and then there’ll be other things that would be nice to have. Be clear on what is necessary and what would be a bonus. Of course, you can ask for it all upfront, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll get it! You may need to be prepared to adjust your advertisement along the way or to accept candidates that haven’t got ‘everything’ so good to understand upfront what is essential in the role.
Clarity about who are you speaking to
The candidate is asking ‘why should I join your company?’ and it’s important that you have a sense of the candidate you are looking to attract. Put yourself in their situation, understand their wants and needs, and speak to them through your advertisement:
What is important to them
What will interest them
What type of organisation will be attractive to them?
Time of life – what is important to them at this stage of their career?
Career development
Community / Collaboration
Security / benefits
Work-life balance
Clarity of who you are as an organisation
The vision, mission, values and goals of an organisation can be important and are something I talk about frequently. You want to ‘speak to’ and attract those candidates who are a good fit for your organisation and who have the same values. To do that, you need to be clear about and communicate those things that are important to you.
Have fun as you explore. It’s time for you to get excited about you as an organisation (and if you find it’s dull and boring it may be time to spice things up!)
Platforms to advertise on
To decide on the best forums, you can explore a variety of routes:
How did others in your organisation hear about similar roles?
Search job boards for the type of role you are advertising and see which one’s have a good amount of traction for similar roles – this is likely to mean candidates with the skills you are looking for use these job boards.
LinkedIn is a strong forum for pro-active recruitment (reach out to candidates with the experience you are looking for) and re-active by advertising/searching.
A little research will give good information on the most popular platforms for resourcing your role.
Market Intel to ensure you are in the right ballpark
You will want to make sure that what you are offering is competitive and what you are asking for is achievable. Job boards are a simple way of getting a feel for this by seeing what others advertise for
What is the going rate?
What is expected in terms of role description?
Benefits offered?
Cultures you’re competing against.
Networking
LinkedIn is a great networking platform. Where you are recruiting for hard to fill roles, being pro-active on LinkedIn and building a network/community is recommended. You can use it in different ways to reach out to those people that you want to attract.
Another great idea is to tap into your team members’ networks, and to ask them for referrals. The people who work within your organisation are likely to know other people who are like themselves, and when you have strong team members recommending others, they are likely to be a good fit for the company.
If you have a referral scheme, then make sure you tap into it, and if you don’t, then it’s a good time to put a referral scheme in place!
Where you are being pro-active in approach, and you recruit regularly, make sure you formally build your ‘candidate pool’.
Do things such as adding candidate details and conversations with relevant information in terms of what are the most important things to them, what their situation is at the moment, when are they available, or when will they be interested in looking for new opportunities. Book a touchpoint in to contact them in in the future. Be proactive with those people that you would like to have conversations with to join your company.
Review and Adjust
In terms of process, we said at the beginning to be clear on what it is that you are asking for. What are your ‘must haves’ and what are some of the things that would be desirable?
Of course, you can convey all of the things that you would be looking for and you should convey great information about your company and why people should join you in your advert.
Once the advert has been live for two or three days, review the applications and look at whether you have got relevant applications that you would like to progress. Where that is the case, follow the recruitment process and progress applicants in a productive and efficient way to ensure thorough process and best results.
If you haven’t got the candidates that you are looking for, then you should review all of the steps above. You should question whether what have you been asking for needs to be adjusted. If you’re advertising a salary, is it in the right ballpark?
If you are recruiting on behalf of a department, a conversation with the line manager might be appropriate to look at leeway in terms of advertisement to be able to attract the relevant candidates.
Review the advert to make sure it is doing what you want it to do.
Revisit the platforms to see which platforms are drawing in the candidates and which aren’t. Trial, another platform if relevant.
Reviewing after two or three days allows you to adjust depending on response, re-advertise if necessary and do the same after two or three days. If there is not a candidate out there to fit everything you are looking for you there is no point in bashing your head against a brick wall. It is much better, that you become more realistic about what you can attract and that you adjust accordingly.
Interview process
The interview process is incredibly important. The messages you send out and the stages a candidate goes through are key and can be a deciding factor in the candidates as well as your decision-making process
Key messages to send:
You are looking for and expect ‘the best’
It matters how individuals ‘show up’
You are thorough in your approach
Key messages are sent through:
Timely and professional communications
The recruitment team conducting themselves as they would expect the team member to
Preparation for interview – role description, interview questions, clarity on who is covering which areas if more than one interviewer
Asking relevant questions that explore past the ‘surface’
Having a number of stages to the process makes a positive difference. It means that you are being thorough in approach, helps to ensure you get an ‘all round view’ of the candidate, that the candidate understands what is important to the company and the role and ensures the candidate interacts with relevant personnel through the process.
Any offer tends to be more valued where a thorough process is followed, I have outlined an example of a process to follow below:
Review position and role needs against Manpower plan
Agree recruitment method / platforms for recruitment
Agree advert and Advertise
Screen responses
Telephone interview potential candidates
First interview with Line Manager
Second interview (can include a ‘working interview’), second interview by Senior Manager
Take feedback at each stage from candidate – where positive feedback give offer
For more detail or further information please leave comments and questions below
Suzanne is dedicated to helping you avoid HR risks and make the most of your team. Check out her website, or you can contact her at [email protected]
Neurodiversity consultant and coach Mark Charlesworth writes the second post in our series on neurodiversity in which he explains how to attract and recruit neurodivergent talent.Read his first post, Closing the Neurodiversity Employment Gap here.
Candidate Attraction
The employment rate disparity as well the previous experiences of neurodivergent people provide a recipe for low self-esteem in the recruitment process. This is further exacerbated when a person with ADHD experiences ‘rejection-sensitive dysphoria’ as a presentation of their condition. This is where previous rejection is mis-interpreted as a personal thing in that the applicant was not liked, rather than ‘not successful this time’. Because of this, a lot can be done with company image and the wording used in order to shout loudly that as an organisation you encourage neurodiverse talent.
The wording of any job advert is key to find and talk to your chosen audience, but ideally attract them too. Avoid words such as ‘social skills’ because these will likely cause an autistic candidate to not apply. Meanwhile, a candidate with dyspraxia or dyslexia will be put off by a role that requires lots of writing, for example.
Re-phrase to ensure that within the advert you emphasise that you are “flexible in the process to ensure neurodivergent colleagues can produce the end goal” or something along those lines. This encouragement is enhanced if you were also to offer alternative methods of application, such as videos, CVs, or work-trials. This ensures that interview barriers can be avoided for an autistic person who would be great at the job, but may otherwise fail an interview.
Job fairs are an excellent way to engage with pro-active candidates who can have a conversation with you about whether or not to apply, but job fairs are noisy and have lots of people milling around. This can be a psychologically distressing environment for an autistic person, so why not consider having a ‘neurodiverse hour’ at the beginning and the end of the fair?
Autistic people can also have anxiety about approaching people and may not actually interact with any of the recruiters and employers, and so will miss out as a result. Furthermore, just getting to and from a location can by traumatic for a neurodivergent person, which depends on the time of day of course and the location of the job fair too. So, to attract neurodivergent talent, why not approach the organisations that support people to let them share the role you want to advertise with their email list?
Recruitment Process
A person with ADHD is likely to have job hopped and there is a high chance there will be gaps between roles. Rather than seeing this as a negative, see it as a positive – at least the candidate is being honest. When considering the employment rate disparity, would you put yourself through a process that gave continuous rejections, and didn’t make reasonable adjustments?
It may be that a neurodivergent candidate struggles with writing a CV or completing an application form. Why not ask them to record a video or audio file of themself answering your needs?
Those with autism and ADHD may have difficulty with off-the-cuff and open questions. This means that, despite high intelligence, they may have difficulty describing themselves. This is not a negative, just part of their condition.
During the interview process, be aware of the working memory difficulties that those with ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia have. It may appear the candidate doesn’t know an answer, even though they do. The filing cabinet drawer to jammed, and we cannot pull out the file to show you. We know exactly which drawer, file, and section to go to, but we need a little more time. Think of this as a positive. We don’t give probable answers to fill a gap; we continually double check our facts to know we are correct. This is a benefit and safety element, especially in a detail orientated environment.
The STAR interview technique is fantastic from the interviewer’s perspective, but a neurodiverse candidate can struggle to answer “give me an example of when you last gave great customer service?” because they always give great service and are searching from something out of the norm. Also, working memory difficulties mean that examples cannot always be presented even when there are many.
Most if not all people on the ADHD and autistic spectrum very rarely lie, if at all, so they always tell the truth. This means that neurodiverse people are at a disadvantage in an interview, because we are honest and will tell you when we cannot remember something. Meanwhile, a neurotypical will have the ability to fib for the purpose of an interview and appear ‘polished and perfect’.
When interviewing a neurodiverse candidate, then, ask for their response to a given situation, but always try to give the questions to the candidate just before the interview so they will not be as nervous.
Throughout the interview, it may seem that an autistic candidate is not interested, partly because of a lack of eye contact or seeming blunt or rude. By being at the interview, they are most definitely interested because it takes a lot for an autistic person to gain the confidence to engage in such a social situation.
You may want, then, to rely on personality or psychometric tests, but you need to calibrate where your pass and fail is. Many of the original test groups were neurotypical, so this sets neurodivergent people up for failure. Are they really necessary? If not, then junk them.
When evolving your recruitment function for a neurodiverse application, humans are the best algorithm money can buy. By using AI, you are at risk of excluding neurodiverse talent, especially when autistic people talk about ‘I’ rather than ‘we’ and you exclude the ‘I’s. This is also true of grammatical errors produced by dyslexic applicants too.
Throughout the recruitment process and beyond, there will be different forms of communication. Whether it be a rejection, an offer, request for further information, or something else, you need to be mindful that neurodivergent people may take a little longer to respond. Chase them or give them the benefit of doubt if they miss a deadline but otherwise showed interest.
People on the autistic spectrum are flexible and open to change, but the difficulty arises when there is a sudden change or stop, so introduce changes in a process or make sure you’re letting a person down gradually. Introduce the possibility of failed outcome at the beginning as well as being clear on expectations throughout.
Many but not all people on the autistic spectrum interpret things literally. Make sure to instrict clearly, and always back this up in an email. For example:
A “Can you go to Cragside for an interview on Monday?”
B “You have an interview on Monday 1st May at 2pm. Go to 1 The Street, Newcastle, NE1 1AA”
A is asking if they can, and if the person has a literal interpretation, they are likely to respond based purely on their capability of attending. B, on the other hand, is a clear instruction, which the candidate will follow if they are able to do so.
Keep an eye out for the next blog in this series in which Mark explains how to onboard and retain neurodiverse talent!
To find out more about Mark’s services you can visit him on his website, call him on 07502 464481, or email him at [email protected]
The UK introduced a new immigration system at the beginning of 2021, which has changed the rules for EU nationals working in the UK.
There have also been changes to what is required of businesses when employing someone, including the document checks that are expected in order to establish people are allowed to work in the UK. In this session, Fiona Campbell of Newcastle-based law firm Sintons runs through some of the recent changes and highlight the key things businesses need to be aware of.
Topics covered include:
• The new points-based immigration system
• What the new system means for existing EU workers and settled status
• Skilled worker visas
• Right to work checks
• UK nationals working in the EU
• Remote working in the EU – what are the rules?
Speaker
Fiona Campbell is an Associate at Sintons, specialising in employment and business immigration. Qualifying as a solicitor in 2007, she has been with Sintons since 2017 and is a member of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association. She advises businesses on internal employment matters, sponsoring migrant workers, right to work checks and immigration-related queries.
Today (18th Oct 2021) is World Menopause Day, and in this blog Karen Lobo-Morell, Director of happy workspace co, explains why its an issue businesses need to take seriously, and outlines some practical steps to take.
Menopause affects us all, it’s not just about women, it has an impact on everyone around them, their work colleagues, managers, families and partners and while ALL women will go through it, why does it still seem to be a taboo subject?
A third of all workers are now over the age of 50 and menopausal women are becoming the fastest-growing workplace demographic, so it’s never been more important to include menopause awareness in corporate wellbeing strategies.
Companies are losing hundreds of thousands of experienced women every year as they struggle to cope with sometimes debilitating symptoms. This loss of skill and knowledge can have a big impact on businesses, not just from a productivity point of view, but also the direct costs of recruiting and retraining new staff.
The average age for women to go through menopause is 51, however, the journey to that stage (known as perimenopause) can begin for some women decades earlier, last for up to 10 years and result in a diverse range of symptoms that can dramatically affect the way they work.
Anxiety, depression, brain fog, memory loss, lack of sleep from constant night sweats, fatigue, mood swings and muscle and joint pain can lead to some women feeling like they just can’t function in the workplace, and are too embarrassed to ask for help. But with the right support and empathy from managers and colleagues life can feel a little easier during this challenging time.
According to research by Vodafone, 62% of women surveyed felt their symptoms had negatively impacted them at work and 64% thought there should be more workplace support for menopausal women.
With the number of job vacancies in the UK reaching a 20 year high, and some industries fighting to get skilled staff, it makes sense to do what you can to retain the people you have.
Male-dominated industries that are trying to attract more women into their ranks, such as construction, could potentially be missing out on a large pool of experienced and talented employees in a market where workers are already in short supply.
Whilst many industry-leading organisations have recognised the importance of diversity and inclusivity in order to retain experts there’s still a need to create workplace cultures that encourage women to seek help when it comes to menopause. But for this to happen, managers, both male and female, should be given the training they need to understand what menopause is, how to feel comfortable discussing the topic and know what support they can put in place to help their female colleagues and support co-workers.
All workplaces have maternity policies, but not all women will become pregnant, there’s a growing recognition of the need for mental health support in the workplace but menopause can also have a big impact on workers. Companies such as ASOS and Vodafone are leading the way by offering staff flexible working, paid leave, staff training and access to help through employee assistance programmes.
There are a number of strategies companies can put in place to create a working environment that offers women the confidence to seek help, such as:
Openly discussing the topic internally
Running training for managers – there are companies who specialise in this topic
Allowing flexible working for women experiencing symptoms
Setting up a weekly confidential women’s support group
Providing women who are experiencing hot flushes with a desk fan or seating near a window that opens
Including counselling around menopause in employee assistance programmes
Running regular mindfulness and/or meditation workshops to help ease anxiety
Teams are stronger together, when everyone has the support and tools they need to carry out their role to the best of their ability everyone wins.
Karen Lobo-Morell, Director at happy workspace co
happy workspace co help companies design dynamic workplace wellness strategies so their people and business thrive.
In the UK, women account for only 24% of the core STEM workforce It’s no surprise to know that the number of women taking STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) roles is disproportionately low, but why? Lyndsey Britton-Lee of 50:50 Future explains.
The issue is a multi-faceted one. One of the biggest problems we come across at 50:50 Future is in recruitment and there are lots of practical strategies and practices we can put in place to ensure we attract a wider candidate pool – however, it’s not just down to recruitment it’s also about retention & building inclusive cultures. Despite many women obtaining STEM degrees, few continue to work in the field in which they qualified, which is where we start to see a ‘leaky pipeline’. Retention needs not only greater attention but also breaking down some of the entrenched biases in the industry. Sexual harassment and bullying have forced many women out of STEM and further barriers include bias during the hiring process, difficulties reintegrating following a career break, and women’s low confidence in their abilities despite their accomplishments, all of which can hinder career progression.
More emphasis needs to be placed on promoting STEM as a welcoming and inclusive sector, workplaces in this industry must view Diversity and Inclusion as a business critical strategy and run it through the veins of their organisation as they would any other core business strategy, such as sales. Many businesses don’t know where or how to start but even the smallest changes can make a big difference. At 50:50 Future we always recommend taking a holistic approach to your D&I strategy rather than one-off initiatives in silos across the business.
However, the problem starts way before the workplace in the way biases and gender stereotyping shape our children’s perception of the world and their place within it according to their gender.
At an early age, boys are four times as likely to want to become engineers as girls
Research shows that gender stereotypes result in girls, by the age of six, avoiding subjects they view as requiring them to be “really, really smart”
The assumptions we make about boys and girls may be conscious or unconscious and can result in our young people being treated differently or offered different opportunities based on their gender. Gender stereotypes shape self-perception, attitudes to relationships and influence participation in the world of work. An understanding of gendered roles, for example, is evident as early as age four.
These misperceptions have a strong influence over what young people believe is for them or not and can be an extremely harmful barrier to their potential if they aren’t challenged effectively or regularly.
‘It feels like I have to like pink and play with dolls and I can’t like blue and play with cars.’ (Girl, 9-10)
‘I feel like people underestimate girls. When I tell people I study physics they think I’m joking because I don’t look like a person who would do that apparently. It annoys and frustrates me. It’s weird because girls can also be engineers.’ (Girl, 15-16)
Through my involvement with the Institute of Physics on Improving Gender Balance in secondary schools, we have seen first-hand the harmful effect of these influences in specific subjects and interests for girls and for boys, which heavily impacts on theirlife choices and careers. This then leads to small numbers of women choosing STEM subjects and pursuing careers in this field as well as men in caring professions as a counter balance, for example.
We can help break down these barriers with our future workforce, by;
Reflecting on our own unconscious biases
Role modelling equality
Encourage children / young people to participate in a range of activities
Be a conscientious consumer
Don’t highlight gender in the way you talk when it’s not relevant
Be willing to question assumptions children make about gender
There is a lot of work still to be done and progress is slow even though the benefits of diverse teams are a no brainer! STEM is at the forefront of innovation and we are currently in an echo chamber – a team of like-minded engineers, mathematicians or scientists, all with the same backgrounds and who have faced similar challenges, will not be as effective as a team with diverse ways of thinking. A homogenous workforce creates homogenous solutions that are most likely only relevant to people within their social and cultural group.
85% of large global enterprises believe that workforce diversity is critical in driving innovation
Organisations with above average gender diversity and levels of employee engagement outperform companies with below average diversity and engagement by 46% to 58%
Companies with more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenues due to innovation
To become more inclusive in your workplace you can start by;
Awareness & Education – a cohesive approach to D&I is invaluable in any organisation to get everyone confident about the subject and on the same page. It’s everyone’s responsibility to learn about others’ challenges and how we can become better allies.
Rewind, Review & Revise – take a fresh look at your policies, practices and recruitment process to see what you can do differently. Using inclusive language, imagery and formatting in your job ads, social media, marketing and website is a good starting point.
Authentic & Aligned – make sure your D&I agenda is owned at the top with a bottom up approach and is holistic across the whole organisation. Aligning your strategy to your values and embedding it into your cultural DNA will make it authentic and can really impact your organisational performance and bottom line.
Lyndsey Britton-Lee
Co-founder, 50:50 Future Ltd
If you would like some free guidance on how to become more inclusive you can book in time with our 50:50 consultants here.
After what has been a hugely difficult eighteen months, things seem to be looking up for the hospitality industry. Lockdown is continuing to ease; pubs are rammed for the Euros and there’s no end to the demand for restaurant and bar bookings. However, the easing of Covid-19 restrictions has created new challenges for the hospitality industry.
Despite unbridled demand offering the sector a much-needed boost, skills and staff shortages in the hospitality industry threaten to dampen the sector’s recovery. Research by Hospitality UK has found that the sector has a vacancy rate of 9% which implies a shortage of 188,000 hospitality staff across the UK. These shortages are mainly concentrated in waiting, bar, and chef roles, though they also are a problem within housekeeping and management roles.
The exact cause of the shortages is unknown, though they are likely a result of the double whammy impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. Before the pandemic, 30% of hospitality workers in the UK came from Europe and up to 50% of chefs are thought to have been born outside the UK. However, the pandemic, the Brexit referendum, and the implementation of the new immigration system has led to an exodus of European migrants. It is estimated that 2.3 million non-UK workers have left the UK since late 2019. However, levels of EU to UK migration have been low since the Brexit vote in 2016, meaning a significant pool of talent that businesses in the hospitality sector traditionally drew upon has been in long-term decline for half a decade.
The new points-based immigration system, which was implemented in January this year, has placed significantly more stringent restrictions on migrants entering the UK and closed the borders to so-called low skilled migrants. With many roles in the hospitality industry deemed below the skill level required for entry and the new system placing an increased financial and administrative burden on both businesses and migrants, it is no wonder that research conducted by the jobs website Indeed has found that searches from EU-based jobseekers for roles in the hospitality sector were down by 41% from levels in 2019.
Undoubtedly the pandemic has also had an impact on the ability of hospitality businesses to retain existing staff. According to research conducted by CGA and CPL Learning, confidence in the sector and its ability to offer stable and secure employment has been shaken with 42% of staff surveyed reporting they are concerned about their long-term job security. With the sector closed for a significant proportion of the past eighteen months, many staff have felt obliged to find alternative employment to protect incomes and job security. Some employers have also reported that the pandemic, and the increased time staff had to spend with friends and family, prompted some to look for alternative employment which offers more sociable working hours.
There are concerns that the sectoral instability caused by the pandemic has also reduced the number of young people or career switchers wanting to establish careers in the hospitality industry. Research shows that the pandemic has triggered a shift in perceptions about working in the sector. Although 59% of people still believe the sector offers good career prospects, this figure has fallen by a significant 15% since June 2020. Similarly, there has been a fall in the number of people who would recommend the sector to establish careers in to family and friends.
So how can people be encouraged to stay establish careers in the hospitality sector?
In the short term, with staff in short supply there will be increasing competition between businesses for talent. Undoubtedly many businesses will be reassessing their own remuneration packages and what benefits they offer staff in order to remain competitive. However, businesses have also highlighted that they are working hard to bolster staff wellbeing as we emerge from the pandemic in an effort to both support and retain employees. To tackle staff shortages and ease the shift back to work from furlough, Hall Garth Hotel in Darlington is offering enhanced employment packages, renewed training and supported transitions back into work for staff from the Job Retention Scheme.
Nevertheless, the sector is facing longer-term recruitment challenges and there is clearly work to be done to encourage new entrants to the workforce to establish a pipeline of talent which can sustain hospitality businesses in the future. Undeniably it will be more important than ever for businesses in the hospitality sector to engage with schools, colleges and universities in order to highlight the huge benefits which the sector can offer new entrants, which include a diverse range of roles, accessible entry routes and huge potential for upward progression in a growing economic sector. It will also be important for hospitality businesses struggling to find the experienced staff they may need to lay the groundwork now and offer training programmes or apprenticeships to young people to encourage them into the sector and to equip them with the skills the industry needs in the future.
Government also has an important role to play to help the hospitality sector recover from the pandemic and plug staff shortages. With unemployment high and set to rise as government support unwinds, the onus will be on jobcentres to highlight the opportunities within the hospitality sector to those who are out of work and searching for new opportunities.
However, perhaps what is the most pressing concern for employers in the hospitality sector is the impacts of restricted migration and the new points-based system. It is likely that changes will need to be made to ensure the sector can access the talent it needs. One way of doing so in the short to medium term is by expanding the number of roles on the Shortage Occupation List. In the long term, Government needs to assess the impacts of the system and could look to embed more flexibility within it to ensure that the workforce can respond to rapidly changing business needs.