In an exclusive interview, Mark Grimshaw Employer Services Director for Jobcentre Plus talks to HRZone about how employers can tailor their recruitment strategies to deliver the best staff in a tight labour market and how his organisation is helping to meet the skills gap.
By Annie Hayes, HRZone Editor
A meteoric rise to the top has seen Grimshaw rise through the ranks of management, kick-started with a four year stint of military service in the Royal Airforce. Since that time he has held a number of impressive posts including sales, marketing and account management roles resulting in an eclectic mix of experiences which has given him valuable insight into people-management.
Grimshaw joined Jobcentre Plus in May 2002 from Cable and Wireless where he was Senior Vice President for Service Delivery managing a number of European and global accountabilities.
As Employer Services Director for Jobcentre Plus, Grimshaw represents the organisation on the National Employer Panel’s SME board. He also represents the Department of Work and Pensions on the Ministry of Defence National Employers Advisory Board.
Jobcentre Plus has more than 1000 offices across the UK and works with over 400,000 employers, a recipe that ensures a staggering 20,000 people are placed by the organisation into work every week.
With official labour market statistics showing that unemployment is at an all time low, HRZone asked what the advice is for employers looking to recruit in a tight labour market.
“Employers have simply got to plan further ahead. It is no longer likely that any one recruitment channel can satisfy demand. Recruiters have to be prepared to start advertising six to 12 months in advance, especially if there is a new recruitment request in a local area. Employers have also got to look at the benefits they offer. Businesses will have to look at more flexible rewards to attract parents, part-timers etc, initiatives including term-time working, for example, should be considered,” comments Grimshaw.
The economies of scale in the recruitment market show worrying similarities with the housing market. As houses take longer to sell and vendors give into buyer’s demands, so must employers recognise that the competition is stiff and candidates are just as likely to ‘gazump’ as property buyers.
The hiring game it seems is not a foregone conclusion and it doesn’t stop as soon as the new recruit arrives fresh-faced for the first day in the office.
“Staff have to engage with customers. Without trained and motivated staff a business is likely to fail. Without implementing good learning and development programmes and investing in training, staff will become despondent and disloyal. I have known retail staff, for example, to move jobs for as little as an extra 10 pence an hour,” says Grimshaw.
Expanding the pool of candidates available to UK Plc is a key strategy for Jobcentre Plus who see it as their job to make sure welfare recipients are not disadvantaged in the labour market.
Chewing over the way ahead for UK Plc, Grimshaw tells HRZone that the only direction is for businesses to align their people strategy with the government’s skills policies.
“Everybody wants to move upwards in their organisation. On-the-job training and vocational training is key. We are one of the least skilled workforces in Western Europe and we need to improve that to create space at the bottom to introduce others to the workforce, people who have been absent from the workforce for a while. Only then can you achieve the friction needed in the labour market to make it workable.”
A key challenge for Grimshaw is to realign employers’ perceptions of Jobcentre Plus away from the Full Monty image.
The film-comedy catapulted forward the vision of British benefits and the jobs scene as tired, old-fashioned, miserable and stuck in a time-warp. The cast, led by leading actor Robert Carlyle, whiled away their unemployed hours by turning to entrepreneurial activities, culminating in a striptease routine akin to the Chippendales but with less muscles.
The new Jobcentre Plus offices provide a single point of access to jobs and benefits, with better customer service and improved use of technology within a welcoming, professional environment for customers. There are now 541 converted Jobcentre Plus offices with full rollout due to be completed by March 2006.
A fierce advertising and promotions campaign has helped to turn around these negative perceptions and employers are beginning to recognise that the tiered approaches the organisation offers can really help in finding recruitment solutions. A particular strength is in plugging large-scale recruitment gaps for businesses opening up in new areas such as retail outfits.
You can’t help feeling that Jobcentre Plus, like the labour market, is now turning the corner. Its appeal to employers to consider the unemployed, lower skilled and welfare disadvantaged must be one of the better ways of filling the skills gap.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently warned that the rosy employment figures mar the record numbers of economically inactive people.
There is a pool of 7.9 million ‘inactive’ people, if Jobcentre Plus can lure this group back into work then perhaps the friction that Grimshaw extols to will be well-oiled.
