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.

5 tips on choosing between your two best equally qualified candidates

By Rob Hayter, Director at TPP Not for Profit

Imagine you are in that lucky situation that many would like to be in; you don’t have one great candidate for a role, you have two! Sometimes though, having two great candidates can make the decision process even harder. There are many elements to think about, recruitment can be expensive and you don’t want to regret your decision in a few months’ time. This month we give you our top tips on how to ensure you are choosing the best candidate for the job.

Testing

You can test candidate’s skills and experience pretty well in a formal interview, however testing, such as psychometric assessing, can give you a better idea about their personality and cultural fit. This kind of testing typically consists of numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning or situation judgements. There aren’t always right or wrong answers in these tests, for example, situational judgement tests look at the way someone may handle a situation.

Before commencing these tests, ensure you have a good idea about the type of person that will fit in; do you want someone that thinks on their feet and takes action? Or are you looking for someone that seeks advice before making decisions? Are you looking for someone who can work well on their own (maybe home working is an important element to this role) or someone that works well in a team (based in a busy office)? Having these details before your candidates commence the test will make analysing them much easier.

Meeting in a relaxed setting

If the interview process has been very formal or included panel interviews, then invite each candidate for an informal relaxed meeting, maybe even a morning’s visit to the office. Incorporate the team into this; this will give you a good indication how the candidates will work with other members of your team and how they’ll fit in with your culture.

Seeing a candidate in a relaxed setting will also show you more of their personality, which isn’t always easy to determine in a formal interview. By meeting the team, you are getting them on board for whichever candidate you choose and they may even have a favourite too.

Take references

Obviously you would not want to contact the candidate’s current employer; however this does not stop you taking references from previous employers. Ask each candidate for details on their previous employer and contact these, ideally for a verbal reference. This will give you a better idea on the candidates’ cultural fit and personality, than a formal reference form around absence and employment dates.

Look at the future of your team

Hopefully this person will remain with your organisation for the foreseeable future, so it’s a good idea to look at your organisation’s future plans. For example, if your team is going to expand rapidly, someone who has worked in larger teams before may perform better in this environment. If you are going to expand internationally, someone with languages may be beneficial.

Equally, just because an applicant doesn’t have experience working in a particular environment, does not mean they won’t perform well. However if you know what’s likely to happen in the future, you can construct scenario-based questions which will help you assess the candidates’ abilities to cope.

Do you have any other skills gaps in your team that one of these candidates could help fill in? For example, one of them might be a whizz with social media, something you are lacking. Could they help support this until you are ready to recruit for this role?

Ask them directly why you should choose them

One candidate may be more motivated for the role than the other. By asking why you should hire them, you should get an indication about their motivations for their role and a good candidate should be able to ‘sell’ themselves and tell you what skills they feel they would bring.

Finally…

Ensure you have asked the candidate their thoughts on the role, salary package, notice periods etc. You may end up being in a position where one candidate is more likely to accept an offer than the other, or one wants a higher salary than you can realistically offer. These are better sorting out before offer stage.

Ensure you keep both candidates in the loop during this process, especially if it becomes lengthy, or you may end up losing two good candidates. And finally ensure you take the time to give the candidate that is not hired feedback. You can read more about the importance of providing feedback on our blog. 

If you aren’t in the fortunate position to have two candidates to choose from and would like to see a selection of candidates for roles you are recruiting to compare or benchmark against your current shortlist please contact us on 020 7198 6000 or info@tpp.co.uk

Why rejecting a temp CV could be the wrong decision

 
By Rob Muddiman, Manager at TPP Not for Profit

With one in three people having worked in a temporary position and with nearly half the workforce, 41% considering temporary employment according to REC’s latest research, then organisations could be missing out on potentially skilled candidates by dismissing a CV where the applicant has done a lot of temping.

Temporary workers are crucial for most businesses, but when temporary workers start looking for permanent roles, they often aren’t shortlisted. This month we look at reasons why hiring someone that has temped for most of their career could be a good move.

Valuable Skills

Some people believe that temporary workers work in unskilled jobs, but this is not always the case. Some agencies specialise in recruiting for temporary workers with specific skills set, such as accounting/bookkeeping temps. Often they need experience in using particular software, such as Sage and require staff with a very niche skill set and qualifications.

Commitment

Some organisations feel that temporary workers can’t commit to long term roles and are unreliable; however REC’s research shows that there are many reasons why people proactively look for temporary roles.  Reasons include, not requiring the stability of long term work, commitments such as further study and childcare.

Gaps on a CV

Temporary work can result in ‘empty spaces’ in their CV, with periods of unemployment/ gaps where they didn’t have work. Unfortunately even if they are a good skilled temporary worker, they are not guaranteed constant work and it can be difficult looking for the next opportunity until your current contract comes to an end.

Instead of looking at the gaps, look at what experience they gained in their roles. As a result of working at lots of organisations they will have gained valuable experience, working with different people and often working with little training. They will have had experience of working with various systems/ software packages and may also have good ideas about helping your organisation streamline processes as a result.

References and notice periods

You have the opportunity to take up more references than someone that has been in a role for a long time, this can help make a decision as to whether to hire one candidate over another. Most temporary workers will have little notice periods, if any, where you could wait up to 3 months for some candidates  in a permanent role.

Temporary workers are generally proactive people that go out and get results and will be used to tackling tasks and getting on with work with little supervision, which could have huge rewards for your organisation and bring a wealth of valuable skills to your organisation.

If you require advice on shortlisting applicants then please contact TPP on 020 7198 6000 or visit our recruitment advice on our website.


Useful Links
Money crashers - Working for temp agencies
MSN - 6 reasons temp jobs can be awesome

Top 8 Creative Recruitment Adverts

 By Hayley Robinson, Manager at TPP Not for Profit

Finding the right person for your organisation is essential, but it can be difficult to find those candidates that tick all the boxes on your job description and person specification. It can pay to sometimes try more creative ways of finding those candidates, especially passive candidates who are not actively looking for a new role.

This month we look at 8 types of creative recruitment adverts, using examples from the web that caught our eye (although not always for the right reasons!)









1.    Before even applying these organisations tested their skills.

2.    These certainly weren’t proof read!

3.    These are enough to make you feel claustrophobic

4.    Being honest about pay and responsibilities

5.    Adverts for the end of the day or week

6.    We have no clue, any guesses?

7.    A little scary

8.    Finally ones to make you laugh