Eloise’s September 2023 News – Jobs Report, Employment Law, Job Descriptions, Women’s Sport
Hello and welcome to September
As the days start to get shorter and children head back to school, everything workwise feels like it comes fully alive again. Most people have taken their main annual leave for the year, and we start to focus on goals we want to hit or things we want to tick off, and for Job Seekers looking for recruitment ahead of the end of the year. I’m certainly not going to mention the ‘c’ word just yet, even though the shops already are!
It’s this time we usually see one of the three recruitment surges of the year – September, New Year, and spring. The September surge is always about getting new Job Seekers in roles and settled ahead of the end of the year. Recruitment often takes a back seat over the summer months, but with businesses back to full capacity, it’s now that recruitment kicks back in.
There is usually a surge of available job seekers at this time of year too, as people have come back from periods of leave. The light and bright summer months make people generally happier but as the nights start to draw in people often think about a job move ahead of the winter months.
So, in terms of recruitment, this is a great time of year to be advertising for new people.
The jobs market
The KPMG and REC Report on Jobs for August certainly starts to back this up. Permanent placements were down – as expected for the time of year and with everyone taking annual leave. But there was the start of growth of available Job Seekers numbers.
There was concern from the REC about employer confidence in the economic outlook and the impact this caution has on recruitment. We’ll see the actual impact of this in September’s report.
Sectors where there have been skills shortages for some time are still bucking all the trends. Think of areas like IT, tech, and healthcare. And for emerging skills like AI, there is an increasing appetite for temporary and permanent workers.
Overall candidate availability is still on the rise, and we expect to see another Job Seekers surge in September’s report. This is great news for anyone recruiting.
Starting salaries and temp wages have continued to rise, however, at a much slower rate than we have been seeing this year – more good news for anyone recruiting.
HRHuddle
I’m delighted to announce that we have a date for our next HR professionals get-together, the HRHuddle:
Date: Wednesday 27th September
Time: 2pm
Venue: Online
Topic: Employment law update with Keeley Baigent of KsabLAW
This session will include our popular employment law update. It’ll cover recent court and employment tribunal decisions, with a focus on disability discrimination, sexual harassment, performance management, and unfair dismissal.
It’ll also include notable recent and proposed legislative developments in the areas of flexible working, bullying, neonatal leave and parents’ redundancy protection, non-compete clauses, and working time records.
Plus, we will also touch on other topical areas, such as an employee’s right to a private life versus an employer’s duty of care, and data subject access requests.
It’s set to be a useful and jam-packed session.
If your HR professional/s don’t already have our HRHuddle on their radar/s, please let them know about this session. We get amazing feedback about our HRHuddle events, they are all about peer-to-peer learning and information sharing from carefully selected key speakers. It’s not a selling platform, nobody is pitching for business. This is an informative group for HR professionals.
Wording your job descriptions
I spotted an article in Recruiter Magazine that said ‘nearly half of employers do not state they would like to hear from a range of diverse applicants in their job adverts’.
They were referring to research conducted by the REC with 167 employers of different sizes across the UK. The research found that:
- 60% of hirers have reviewed the wording of their job adverts to improve inclusion, compared to 54% last year.
- Nearly half of respondents, or 49%, said they do not state their interest in hiring diverse candidates in their job adverts.
- 67% of respondents do not use name-blind CVs during selection, reflecting a step backwards since last year when 53% reported they did not use them.
- More than half of respondents, or 56%, do not use diverse interview panels, compared to 53% last year.
So, my question to you is, how would your business recruitment compare to these results? Are you actively promoting your diversity and inclusion commitment in job descriptions? Are you stating that you want to hear from a diverse range of applicants?
On completion of this research, REC CEO Neil Carberry commented that:
“It is disappointing to see so little action being taken by firms. While a slim majority of employers have reviewed the wording of their adverts, the overall picture suggests there is a lot still to do… Pressure to change must come from boards and executives, as well as government and sector and trade bodies.”
If you’re unsure of how to include wording to encourage and improve inclusion, please ask us, we’ll be very happy to help.
Fines increase for hiring illegal workers
One to watch out for… Employers found to be hiring illegal workers are set to face trebled fines of up to £60k per worker.
The new plans will come into force in the New Year and are to further deter licensed businesses from employing workers without lawful immigration status. This is the biggest penalty shake-up since 2014, and it’s a doubled-pronged attack, focussing on illegally employed workers and landlords who rent rooms and properties to illegal migrants.
Women in the spotlight
I can’t write this month’s blog post without celebrating the achievements of the England women’s football team.
I have been thinking a lot recently about the positive effect the Lionesses are going to have on women in business. I’ve been searching for research or articles but haven’t been able to find anything – yet.
The Lionesses might just be a team of female footballers, but their legacy is going to be about much more than just encouraging women and girls into football, improving facilities, and stepping towards sponsorship deals and big money.
Studies have shown that from the age of 13 girls start to drop out of sport, and by 16 only 10% of girls are meeting the recommended daily guidelines of 60 minutes of physical activity per day (Sport England, 2018). And this isn’t just important from a fitness point of view.
Playing sports, particularly team sport teaches you about resilience, working hard, dreaming big, communication skills, working together for a common goal, how to handle rejection, how to keep going when you’re losing, how to take direction, when to speak up, and when to suck it up.
These are all skills required throughout life, particularly when you have a job. There are lots of ways to attain these skills, but if you can get them when you’re young and growing up, you have a head start. A strong foundation to build upon.
Males have been more likely to acquire these foundation skills when they’re young because of participation in sports. Achievements like those of the Lionesses in football, and the recent achievements of the England Roses in netball, will all help to encourage females into sport at a young age, and hopefully keep them involved past the age of 13 and beyond. Therefore, helping to level the playing field of acquired skills needed for the workplace.
The overall impact of women’s sports being in the public eye, not just football and netball, but with golf, athletics, rugby, and even darts where the men and women compete in some competitions against each other as equals, allows the female 51% of our population to see what’s possible – it’s not just for the boys, and the benefits go far beyond fitness.
Our temps do an amazing job for a wide range of clients in the area. They are some of the most flexible and hardworking people and we want to recognise that every month.
So, if you have a Vanilla temporary worker on assignment, or who has just completed an assignment, who you think has gone above and beyond or exceeded expectations in any way. You can nominate them to receive our Temp of the Month Award.
We recruit throughout the East Midlands covering Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Rutland and the surrounding areas, especially Market Harborough, Lutterworth, Leicester, Corby and Kettering. We help people find their perfect job and match suitable Job Seekers with businesses looking to hire the best candidates across our five specialisms – Sales, Marketing, Accountancy & Finance, HR and Office
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