Recruitment and retention: what current HR challenges do South West businesses face?
Business West leads a network of 21,000 businesses and organisations across the South West, driving long-term prosperity by helping individual businesses succeed, bringing people together, building evidence and influencing change. Here Ian Bell draws on the knowledge and experiences of members to investigate the current challenges of recruiting and retaining the best staff and to highlight ideas that could benefit every business.
Companies need to take great care to position themselves as an employer of choice. That means they attract the best people and they keep them, building up knowledge and experience and saving a small fortune in recruitment and training costs.
Professional services is an important sector for our region and people like lawyers and architects are ultra careful to ensure they are an attractive proposition.
Ross Fairley, Senior Partner at law firm Burges Salmon, with offices in Bristol, London and Edinburgh, acknowledges they are in a very competitive market, with large global law firms focused on competing with each other over big salaries to encourage candidates to join them.
“Our strategy is to pay well but to provide a great office atmosphere and working environment which has, for the last four years, earned us the national accolade of being the best law firm to work for. We avoid hierarchies, and encourage teamwork, where every voice is heard and valued.”
“We often hear that younger generations are presumed to have less long-term loyalty to workplaces than in the past and don’t see themselves spending their whole career with one business. However, our strategy is to focus on both clients and staff, investing in our people’s skills, allowing them to grow and evolve. All this means that people tend to want to stay and build their careers with us,” said Ross.
At the national award-winning architecture and design practice, Stride Treglown, a certified B Corp, Director Tristan Rhodes says the company’s strong reputation has made it easier to attract talented and skilled people. And he agrees with Ross that simplified management structures help create a better working environment.
“As an employee-owned business operating through an Employee Ownership Trust, we organise our senior leadership team with clear roles and line management responsibilities to ensure everyone across our 9 UK studios understands what needs to be done, so nothing falls through the cracks.”
“Employees very much value flexible working, but that requires active leadership and management to ensure positive outcomes. It has taken years to refine, but we believe our teams and colleagues appreciate the time and investment made to support these arrangements, something which is reflected in our strong employee engagement,” said Tristan.
Manufacturing businesses are also finding ways to build in flexibility to attract staff. Gary White, Sales and Engineering Director at Fowlers, who are specialists in sheet metalwork, presswork, precision machining, welding and fabrication, says they need to be creative to compete with much bigger companies.
“We have a 30-strong workforce, so we form a closely knitted team where everyone knows one another and we operate as a family. So we arrange things so that people with young children start work earlier than our normal hours and they leave early so they can do the school run.”
“We also make sure people are multi-skilled so they are able to switch from one area to another if demand for the output from one sector temporarily falls off. We must be doing something right because people stay with us for the long haul – in fact, one employee has been here for 55 years!” said Gary.
Recruitment agencies are well placed to provide a broad view of the current market, and Nick Wimshurst, Director of Niche Recruitment, a local specialist recruitment firm, says he sees a mixed picture.
“Staff in sectors such as Care and Construction remain in short supply, but there has also been a noticeable rise in the number of companies making redundancies and restructuring, driven by increased National Insurance costs and the growing use of Artificial Intelligence.”
“This, in turn, has led to an increase in available talent within Marketing, Project Management, Administration and Sales, though fewer companies are hiring. The knock on is it means it is a particularly challenging time for graduates seeking entry-level roles because firms want a proven track record and there are experienced people available because of restructuring elsewhere.”
Just to make matters more complex for businesses, Government is currently considering changes to employment regulations but that’s a discussion for another day as companies today concentrate on grappling with the challenges of the here and now.