Why employers need to be flexible to recruit top talent

By Rob Muddiman, Healthcare Manager at TPP.

The latest figures show that unemployment has dropped to below 1.97 million in the three months to the end of August and although businesses are growing, there is a threat of potential skills shortages. With fewer candidates available and applying for jobs, employers will need to work harder to find staff. The very best candidates are likely to already be happily employed, and are unlikely to be tempted to move unless an attractive salary entices them or the job advertised suits them better in terms of their life stage.

As a not for profit organisation, offering financial rewards is not always possible, so you need to attract staff with a job that suits their lifestyle. This month we give you our top tips on how to attract top talent by offering flexibility.  When writing your job description and person specification consider how you can make this role attractive and what flexibility can be offered and ensure these are advertised in the role from the start.

Life Stage Benefits

Individual benefit plans can appeal to employees, as they can select the benefits that suit their individual needs, tastes and goals at their current stage in life.  For example, childcare vouchers would suit a parent, where as mentoring or vouchers for gym membership may suit people beginning their careers or without commitments.

Other benefits that could be included in life stage benefits include pension, life assurance, private medical insurance, holiday and purchases on items such as laptops/ mobile phones.

CIPD provide more information on flexible benefit schemes here.

Hire and train up

Consider hiring a more junior candidate for the role and train them up. Carry out a job analysis to identify skills and knowledge that are essential before beginning the recruitment process, be realistic with essential and desirable skills.

By offering training, you have the added benefit of being able to employ a more junior candidate at a lower salary and you can mould this person to your organisation, while improving their skills. By offering scope for development, you are more likely to attract an individual that will remain loyal to your organisation and money saved in terms of salary can be invested in on the job and off the job training.

Gov.uk provides further information on hiring and training staff.

Part-time/job share

Consider whether you need someone full-time. If you need someone full-time consider allowing job share applicants. By allowing these you immediately open up your job vacancy to more applicants, such as parents. With job shares you have the added benefit of two people’s ideas and initiatives on your team.

Many part-time workers will also consider travelling further for the right role, as they won’t be travelling everyday, this may be the difference of attracting a great candidate that is the perfect fit for your role.

You can find out more about recruiting part-time workers here.

Flexible working

Flexible working gives people a better work-life balance. Results of our past salary surveys have showed that flexible working is a sought after benefit. Flexible working can include part-time working as mentioned above, but more sought after is flexitime. This gives the freedom for people to work when they want (possibly from home) with core hours when they need to be present.

It is rare to see many jobs advertised with the benefit of flexible working advertised, although are sometimes negotiated at offer stage. This immediately will put some candidates off applying, by advertising this benefit you will have a broader, more diverse applicant pool. This can also help with equal opportunities and diversity for staff that might be unable to work standard hours or full time.

TPP has adopted a flexible working policy to retain our current staff and attract the best new employees in the future. You can find out more about flexible working on the gov.uk website.

Building in flexible working practices and benefits into the job description right from the start of the recruitment process is one of the key ways in which a not for profit organisation can distinguish itself as an employer of choice and compete with larger organisations and the private sector for the very best candidates.

How to recruit staff outside of London

London has the highest density of charities in the UK and other not for profit organisations, and the headquarters for most national and international organisations are based there.  However, according to the UK Voluntary Sector Workforce Almanac, 81% of third sector employees live outside of the capital, with the highest rates of growth in employment in the North East, South West and Yorkshire & Humberside.

In recent years there has been a growing trend within the third sector towards the decentralisation of charity operations.  It makes sense to situate fundraising, communications and administration in the same location as service delivery, encouraging local people to support their own communities.

This has created a huge demand for skilled charity staff outside of London, which has prompted TPP to open a second office in the North of England. If you’re a charity based outside of the capital, or one with regional branches, how can you find local staff of the calibre you need?

The benefits of recruiting locally

Probably the main reason charities choose to recruit locally is to ensure that their employees come from the same background as their beneficiaries and can relate to them and the challenges they face.  Providing employment in the local area is also very important to regionally-based not for profits, and often helps support their charitable objectives.

Additional benefits include possible savings in travel or relocation expenses, overheads and even wages.  Plus, employees who live where they work can be more loyal, reducing your turnover and boosting productivity.

And the downside…

Obviously, the main downside to recruiting locally is that there is usually a much smaller pool of qualified candidates to choose from, making it a struggle not to settle for a less than ideal employee.  Some candidates may also actually prefer to work in London, and will treat your role as a stopgap until they can make the move.

Recruiting regionally, especially if you need to recruit for multiple locations, is also much more time consuming that recruiting in London, as the smaller pool of candidates mean you need to devote more resources towards finding them.  It can also work out more expensive, as you may need to advertise on both local job boards, as well as specialist sector boards.

So what methods can you use to find the candidates you need, while avoiding those who are not really committed to working locally?

Use local job boards / papers

Although it might be considered passé by some, local media is still the first point of call for the majority of the UK population when job hunting; according to the Newspaper Society, 72% of people would search using their local newspaper or website.  With over 1,100 local newspapers in the UK, this can be a great way to target jobseekers specifically looking for local jobs, and cut down on irrelevant applications.  Most print ads will also be run on the local newspaper’s website, so you won’t miss out on online jobseekers.

However, before you start running a classified ad campaign, make sure you check out the readership figures and application ratios for your local publications, as some publications are much more popular than others and represent better value for money.  If you are searching for candidates with a very specific skill set, local media may not be the right solution and a sector-specific national job board may work better.

Find local communities

Charity staff in regional areas often form groups to share ideas and information and to network with peers based in the same location.  Tapping into these networks can give you opportunities to advertise jobs and hunt for potential candidates.

Many third sector associations have special interest groups for regional charity staff, such as the Institute of Fundraising, Small Charities Coalition and CharityComms.  There are also membership groups specifically for charities based in a certain region, like Involve Yorkshire & Humber or the South East Charity Forum.

You can also search for regional groups of charity specialists on LinkedIn – these usually allow job advertising – or for online forums, such as those at Fundraising.co.uk.  Spend some time using a search engine to find organisations and forums in your target area.

Ask for referrals

When asked how they had found their current job by the Newspaper Society, the most common method was word of mouth.  Referrals have definite advantages as a method of recruitment, as existing employees are likely to know people in similar roles and locations to them and jobseekers are likely to place more value on a role recommended to them personally.

The easiest way of generating referrals is simply to keep your staff informed of any upcoming job vacancies, and ask them to distribute via word of mouth, email and social networks.  Offering a referral fee will help incentivise your employees.

Sell the benefits

When advertising a role in a regional area, make sure you emphasise the benefits of working in that particular location, especially if you are likely to be competing with jobs based in London.

One of the aspects of working that people in the UK dislike most is commuting, and just over a quarter (26%) would most like to work somewhere closer to where they live.  Capitalise on this by stressing the benefits of a significantly shorter (and cheaper) commute in your job description.  Working in regional areas can also give employees a more pleasant working environment and the benefits of living in a less urban environment.  Offering the possibility of a better work-life balance can be an extremely attractive draw, particularly for candidates with families.

Jobseekers often worry that taking a job outside of London will give them fewer opportunities for career progression, but this is a concern that can often be tackled in the job description.  Working in a smaller office can give them opportunities to take on more responsibility at an earlier stage, and having fewer processes and stakeholders involved in decisions means they can make an impact more quickly.  A smaller structure means that employees usually work more closely with senior management, and this can give them a better insight into the organisation’s processes which can stand them in good stead later on in their career.

Finally, if you are still having difficulties finding the perfect candidate, offering flexible working opportunities can make your role more competitive with those based in the capital.  The results of TPP’s Flexible Working Survey shows that flexible working options are highly valued by employees, but there is a real gap in what they want and what most third sector employers offer.  Capitalise on this by offering part time work, home working or flexible hours and your vacancy will be much more attractive.

Screen candidates thoroughly

Once your job advertisement has generated a suitable pool of applicants, you’ll need to screen them carefully, to make sure they are going to be committed employees.  The scarcity of job opportunities in the current economic climate means that some jobseekers will apply for regionally-based roles, even if they really want to work in London.  These employees are likely to be less loyal and leave as soon as a vacancy comes up in their preferred location.

Obviously, check where your potential employee currently lives and what their commute will be like.  Discuss any concerns with them at the first interview stage, to make sure they have a realistic idea of how long their journey will take.  As in any job interview, check that the candidate has good reasons for wanting to work in your organisation, and find out their plans for their future career.  Probe their reasons for leaving their previous employers, particularly if they show evidence of ‘job-hopping’.  Evidence of volunteering in the local community could be a good indication that the candidate is rooted in that region and likely to be committed to helping the local population.

If you find a particular candidate who seems ideal for the role, but you are in doubt about their commitment, consider offering the role to them on a temporary or contract basis.  This will give both of you time to assess how things work out.

Use a specialist

However many of these suggestions you follow, recruiting is always going to be harder outside the capital, and if your organisation has multiple locations with a regular turnover of staff it can be extremely difficult to build a pipeline of potential candidates for all of these areas.

Using a specialist recruiter can save you a great deal of time and hassle, and can ultimately save you money as advertising costs are included in the fee, which is only payable when a candidate is successfully placed.  TPP use a variety of methods to advertise our roles, including our own website and social media, specialist and national job boards, plus local advertising when required.  We also interview candidates prior to shortlisting, so you’ll only see CVs for people who can do the role.  All this is included in our fee.

Established in 1996, TPP Not for Profit has a wealth of experience in recruiting specialist charity employees.  Our second office has now made it easier for us to meet and interview both clients (to establish their requirements and assess their organisation’s culture and work environment) and candidates (all TPP candidates are interviewed in depth by us prior to shortlisting).  We already have a network of candidates actively looking for locally-based jobs, and can make the recruitment process much faster and smoother for you.

We cover all types of charity jobs, from fundraisers, social workers, healthcare professionals to communications and admin staff, in all locations across the UK.  We recruit on a permanent, contract or temporary basis for roles at all levels from Assistant to Director.

You can find out more about our regional recruitment services or our office locations on our website.  If you have a regional role coming up, please contact Ellen Drummond, our Regional Recruitment Manager on 0191 406 7121 or ellen.drummond@tpp.co.uk.

Five ‘hidden’ employer benefits of flexible working

Recent research from TPP has shown just how valuable offering flexible working can be for non-profit organisations, and the positive effects it brings to productivity, morale, recruitment and retention have been well-documented. However, some organisations are still reluctant to introduce flexible working practices or extend them more widely throughout their staff.

There are benefits that flexible working brings that are less obvious than those mentioned above, but should still be taken into account when considering whether to introduce or extend your flexible working scheme.

Improved diversity

Offering flexible working is one of the key ways in which organisations can build a more diverse workforce. Employees with different lifestyles, family responsibilities or long-term health conditions usually find it difficult to manage a 9-5 office-based job, and flexible working is vital for them.

Diverse workforces have a broader mix of skills, knowledge and experience, giving an organisation more creativity and flexibility to overcome challenges. It has also been proven that increasing diversity leads to better staff retention.

Find out more about improving diversity

Support for local communities

In recent years there has been a growing trend within charities to decentralise resources, as charities increasingly try to keep close to the local communities in which they work. Local communities also play an important part in fundraising.

International development organisations have been at the forefront of this trend, as their service users are in a different country, and often in a different time zone, and on the ground employees can be much more effective.

Some of the larger UK-based charities have set up regional units in satellite offices to encourage localism, but for smaller charities this is not always possible. However, recruiting staff from the local community and encouraging them to work from home wherever possible can help a charity to keep in touch with its service users. It can also benefit the local community as staff spend more of their salary in that area.

Environmental impact

Most charities, whether it is part of their mission or not, tend to act in an ethical manner regarding the environment wherever possible.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the typical carbon footprint of an officer worker is 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, compared to the 865 kg footprint of a home worker. That’s a 42% saving, roughly the equivalent of 100 loads of laundry.

Even if it’s not possible to offer full-time remote working, encouraging employees to work some of the time from home and use web- or telephone-conferencing rather than travelling to meetings can all help reduce their carbon footprint.

Cost savings

The average office cost per employee in the UK is £6k per year. That’s a huge amount of money considering the average UK office is only at 45% occupancy over the working day.

In the current economic climate, when charities are being forced to explore ways of cutting costs without affecting their services, this is really a factor you cannot afford to ignore.

Staggered home working, combined with hotdesking, can really improve the efficiency of your office and help bring down overhead costs.

Skills sharing and upskilling

Having staff members who are regularly out of the office can have a positive effect on the team as a whole. Responsibilities and the skill sets they require are more likely to be shared across the team, and the likelihood of skills silos decreased.

This gives employers the opportunity to take over tasks they might not normally handle, allowing them to grow their skills and giving them a more varied work life, which can help boost morale. Spreading skills and knowledge across a team also helps to ensure that productivity does not drop in periods of staff turnover.

However, to really foster a spirit of cooperation in an office, it is important that all employees are given equal opportunities for flexible working. Allowing some staff to work remotely but giving others no flexible options can create resentment and will make it much harder to create an environment in which workers are willing to share their knowledge and skills.

Now is the time

At a recent conference, Transport Minister Norman Baker, encouraged organisations to use the London 2012 Olympic Games as an opportunity to test different flexible working strategies that allow staff to work from home or from offices closer to where they live.

The Family and Parenting Institute expect the Olympics to be a “watershed moment” that embeds widespread flexible working practices in the UK, as organisations create opportunities for flexible working, see the added value it brings, and implement these schemes on a more permanent basis.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that flexible working is essential for future growth in the UK, so why not embrace the challenges of the Olympics as an opportunity to harness the full value of flexible working for your organisation?


More information

For more help with flexible working strategies, see:

TPP Blog - Part time workers can add value to your organisation

TPP Blog - 5 ways to engage remote workers

Civil Society Finance - Flexible working: the new normal

HR Zone - Four managerial traits to ensure flexible working works

Small Business Blog - Five Ways Flexible Working Can Boost Productivity

Part time workers can add value to your organisation

38% of voluntary sector employees are currently working part time (compared to the 27% national average) and this percentage is increasing.  Why are not for profit organisations increasingly choosing to employ staff on a part-time basis and how can you take advantage of this trend?

Typical part time workers


Part time staff are those who fewer hours per week than a full time employee. Jobs are generally classified as part time if they cover fewer than 30 or 35 hours per week.
 
There is a growing pool of jobseekers who are specifically looking for part time work, particularly women with young children wanting a job they can fit around childcare.  Typical part-timers also include the semi-retired, students balancing work with study and professionals looking to spend some time freelancing or volunteering.

Make cost savings

Obviously, employing part time staff helps to keep costs down in areas where you don’t yet need full time cover, particularly for smaller charities.  Employing a part timer to help out full time staff can also help save on overtime costs and reduce staff stress and absenteeism.

Using part time employees can also give your organisation greater flexibility to cover busy periods or areas of growth.

Bring in new skills

Hiring a part time employee can also add real value to your organisation, as you can look at more senior staff then you could otherwise afford.  These employees have often had a variety of jobs and can bring more knowledge and experience to your organisation and are used to handling stress and juggling lots of different tasks.

Employers often combine specialist skills in order to create one full time vacancy, such as fundraising and marketing or finance and IT.  However, it can be better to hire two part time specialists, rather than one full time employee who has to wear two different hats.

Part timers can also be used to bring in a specific skill currently lacking in your current employees.  This enables your organisation to grow without necessarily investing a substantial amount of money.

Widen your pool of candidates

Recruiting for part time staff has another big advantage of giving you a wider pool of candidates.  Part time roles are still greatly in demand, as people wanting to work part time greatly outnumber the jobs available, meaning you have your pick of candidates.

This is particularly true when hiring for positions where good candidates are in short supply.  If you’re unable to find suitably qualified candidates at the right salary, extending your search to part timers can give you access to a huge army of well qualified people looking for flexible work.

Offering the option to work part time also allows you to retain talented staff, eg after maternity leave.

Increase productivity

A rewarding side effect of employing part time staff is that it can help boost morale, productiveness and retention.  Part timers usually value their jobs greatly and combined with the increased job satisfaction that flexible working traditionally brings, this is reflected in their productivity.  In fact, it is not uncommon for part-time workers to do as much in their shorter day or week than a full-time worker on the same staff.

Part timers also tend to fit the rest of their life in the time that they are not at work, so require less time off for dentist’s or doctor’s appointments and have lower absenteeism and sickness rates than full time employees.

Young part timers, such as students, can bring energy and enthusiasm to an organisation, as well as a willingness to learn and take on new tasks and responsibilities.

Demonstrate diversity

Employing part time staff also helps to demonstrate that your organisation has a diverse workforce and ethical employment practices.  This is particularly important for charities that champion those sectors of society which have a high percentage of potential part time workers, eg those dealing with women’s rights, parenting or ageism.

Recruiting for part time staff

The next time you are recruiting for a job requiring a high level of skill but with a low salary, or for one spanning several disciplines, consider employing one or more part timer instead of a full time employee.  Even if you do decide to advertise the role as full time, don’t automatically discount CVs from part time candidates, as they might be just the solution your organisation needs.

Unlike some recruitment consultancies, who don’t like recruiting for part-time positions as it results in lower fees for them, TPP are always happy to fill part-time roles and always encourage our clients to consider what option will give them the best value for money.  In fact, 13% of TPP’s own workforce are part time employees.

Recruiting for hard-to-fill roles

At TPP Not for Profit, we recognise that some roles within the not for profit sector are notoriously hard to fill. These traditionally include charity fundraising or marketing and communications vacancies , as well as roles for qualified healthcare professionals such as specialist nurses. Particularly for smaller organisations, filling these roles with the right calibre of candidate can be extremely difficult. Obviously using a recruitment consultancy with specialist experience of recruiting these candidates will help, but here are some further tips on ways to fill your difficult vacancies.

Why are some roles hard to fill?

There are several reasons why your organisation might be finding it difficult to recruit a suitable new employee.

• The most common reason is that the job requires skills which are in short supply, such as major donor fundraising 
• Your organisation is in a location where there is a shortage of labour and attracting employees to the area is difficult
• The salary you are able to offer is below market average and you are unable to compete with other organisations
• The benefits package offered is not as attractive as those offered by others
• The organisation has recently gone through a well-publicized restructuring or series of layoffs, or received negative publicity, which can put potential candidates off

Define your search criteria

If you are struggling to find candidates that exactly match your person specification, one of the most obvious places to start is by revisiting the qualifications required. Many skills gaps reported by not for profit organisations are related to job specific and technical skills, rather than soft skills such as team working. When it comes to recruiting the perfect new employee, TPP believes that cultural fit is at least as important as qualifications. Hard skills can be taught, but soft skills are generally much harder to learn.

Go through all of the skills and competencies mentioned in your person specification and decide which are easy to find, hard to find, easy to learn and hard to learn. Classifying the qualifications of a role in this way allows you to rank them in order of importance, and judge candidates accordingly. For example, if a candidate lacks skills that are hard to find but easy to learn, you may wish to rank them higher than a candidate who has those skills but lacks other, harder to learn characteristics.

Working with a recruitment partner, such as TPP Not for Profit, will give you an impartial point of view on whether your candidate expectations are realistic.

Widen your pool of candidates

Now you have considered which qualifications are essential, and which you might compromise on, you can look at bringing in different kinds of candidates in different ways.

One of the most obvious ways to give yourself a broader pool of candidates to choose from is to consider employing someone from outside the not for profit sector. As long as the candidate is still passionate about your organisation’s cause and has transferrable skills, a lack of sector experience may not necessarily be a stumbling block. In fact, having fresh blood with no preconceptions may provide your organisation with a valuable new point of view and ensure you have a diverse workforce.  Considering candidates from different industry backgrounds can really open up your options.

If the skills required for the role are relatively easy to learn, you could also consider taking on a less experienced employee at a lower pay rate and training them up on the job. This is a cost effective way of filling your role and although it will take at least a few months for your new employee to get up to speed, you should end up with a highly qualified and motivated member of staff.

Use Interim staff

If you simply haven’t got the time to train up a new member of staff, or you don’t have other employees with those competencies to do the training, consider hiring an interim or contract employee. There are three main ways to use interim staff to recruit for hard to fill roles:

• Use the contract period as an extended job interview, to give you a low-risk way of testing how effective a new employee is in the role
• Use an interim employee to give you breathing space to find your ideal permanent member of staff. This will take the pressure off and make you less likely to have to settle for a less than ideal candidate
• Hire a highly skilled interim with the specific remit of training up new or existing members of staff so that they can take over the role in the future

Change the role

If you are still struggling to find candidates, especially if they are not in a traditionally hard-to-find niche, this may be a clear signal that the role needs to be redesigned.

Often job descriptions are based on the responsibilities undertaken by a previous incumbent, but it may well be that the role evolved over time to suit that particular individual and finding a straight replacement is making your candidate search harder than necessary.

Take apart the job description and consider each set of responsibilities individually. Could certain duties be undertaken by other existing members of staff, leaving the remaining responsibilities as part of a more consistent role? Or should you actually be recruiting for two members of staff instead of one (usually a senior and a junior employee)?


Review your offering

If you are struggling with other organisations for candidates, remember that competing isn’t necessarily about offering more money. You could offer better benefits, work-life balance or simply have a cause that resonates more strongly with the candidate.

Flexible working is one of the prime attractions for candidates working in the not for profit sector, and increasing the opportunities for this will almost always help to attract more or higher quality candidates. Consider whether the position could be suitable for a part-time employee or job share. Ensuring opportunities for working from home are advertised in the job description will also help widen your pool of candidates, particularly for organisations in less central locations.

TPP Not for Profit have great deal of knowledge on salary and benefits benchmarks within your sector, and will be able to advise you on putting together a realistic package that will ensure you get the calibre of candidates you require.

Finally, a word of warning…

When interviewing candidates for hard-to-fill roles, be particularly careful to leave them with a positive view of your organisation, whatever the outcome of the interview. Employees in these niche communities are often closely networked and a negative interview experience could damage your employer brand image.


TPP Not for Profit are experts in the recruitment to the not for profit sector, and are often asked to help fill difficult vacancies. We can manage your interview process to ensure all candidates take away a positive image of your brand.