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If it ain’t fun, why do it?

Today, as I write this, is the final day of my 30’s. A time of reflection, setting priorities and more than ever, understanding what’s important and where I want to spend my time.

As much as age is just a number, birthdays are a reminder that we don’t have an infinite amount of them! We all have responsibilities in life, weather that’s having a mortgage or rent to pay, a family to provide for or staff to keep in jobs, but if we’re waking up every day with a sick feeling in the pit of our stomachs at the thought of another day pushing widgets out the door, what’s the point?

Someone once said to me “If you’re saying yes to something, always think about what you’re saying no to” …… Just let that one sink in for a bit.

This morning I read that Monash University have conducted one of Australia’s largest surveys of teachers, revealing that 71% of educators feel underappreciated in the classroom. 71%!! There’s a lot wrong with this! Out of 2444 teachers surveyed, that’s 1735 people in a single profession who start their days feeling overworked, underappreciated and disrespected.

High levels of job dissatisfaction are not isolated to education. There is an on-going theme in Australia. Back in July of 2019 Hanover Research revealed that 38% of Australian workers are unsatisfied with their current job. Issues with salary or pay (41%), job security (37%), and uninteresting work (33%) were identified as the main drivers for workplace dissatisfaction.

Now, before you throw your laptop out the window and head home to begin your life as a yogi, stay with me to the end and let’s see if we can work through this.

  • Assess Your Situation: Self-analysis likely isn’t the super actionable first step you were hoping for but, this will lay the basis for you to attack the next steps with a clear head and a laser focus
  • Tough Conversations: Take initiative to speak up. If you’re not going to who is right! And who knows, you and your manager could come up with some great ideas to address your situation and increase your happiness!
  • Switch Your Perspective: It’s a little cliché but instead of looking at each workday as another time slot where you need to pay your dues, approach it as an opportunity to continue refining your skills and conquer new challenges.

Failing this, get a move on! Life’s far too short people!

You are the only person who can change your situation. Proceed with care for yourself and respect for your employer. We don’t always have to love work, but my birthday wish for you all is that you don’t hate it.

JD

Living the Australian Dream….. Bro!

The Australia day long weekend means different things to different people. For some, a little bit of time off to enjoy the company of family, friends and maybe a BBQ. For others it brings undertones of past injustices (no political statements being made here…. I can’t even vote!).

For me it’s a time to reflect and be thankful for the opportunities this country has provided for me. Now granted, I’ve only migrated 4 hours west from across the dutch brewwww, but this whole moving countries thing and starting again isn’t a walk in the park, especially if you don’t have the privileges that us Kiwis get here in Straya.

It seems to me that for every success story, there are 3 without a happy ending. In the various roles I’ve played in and around the recruitment game, I’ve seen many an immigrant struggle to find their feet and gain an opportunity to showcase their skills. Often these people come in way overqualified for the roles they are applying for but are willing to take a step back in order to gain some local experience.

theconversation.com conducted a survey of skilled migrants in South Australia and found that 53% of immigrants who fall under the skilled migration program, felt they were not utilising their skills and abilities, with 44% working in a job different to what they nominated in their visa application. About 15% reported being unemployed at the time of the survey or for most of their time in Australia – double the South Australian jobless rate. This was despite having skills deemed by government planners to be in short supply.

So, what’s the deal? Is the widely held view of immigrants that Australian employers discriminate against hiring anyone who doesn’t have local experience accurate, or do these jobs simply not exist? In my experience I’ve been unfortunate to witness on far too many occasions where the perfect candidate is turned down based on experience in Australia.

So, I ask you this – Is the skilled migration program working, or does the whole methodology that underpins the program, with state and territory sponsorships that implicitly encourage aspiring migrants, need to be revisited?

Enough of this serious stuff! This Kiwi lad is off to watch a fair dinkum Aussie hero beat up the world tennis number 1!!
** That didn’t go well did it.

JD

Love is in the Air

We spend a lot of time at work and as a consequence, a lot of time with colleagues. With that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a survey produced by job site Vault.com found that 58% of employees have engaged in a romantic relationship with a colleague.

Full disclosure here. I am NOT part of the 58% and have always lived by the rule that we shouldn’t fish off the company pier, dip your pen in the company ink, or however you want to describe it. But I have seen instances where love, or some form of, has blossomed in a workplace and had both positive and negative effects on the culture.

The endless gossip, resentment along with the ugly breakups (granted, not in all cases) translate into an absolute HR disaster. Think about how easily workplace romances gone south, can become sexual harassment cases. It takes but a single foolish action from a scorned lover for a seemingly innocent situation to turn into a visit from Fairwork. Or consider that one in six workplace relationships involves an affair where at least one of the people involved is married or in a relationship, adding a whole new layer of negative effects and hurt feelings.

However, it would be naive to imagine that bunging red blooded humans together for 40 hours per week (and the rest) wouldn’t result in people forming romantic bonds. So, if Cupid strikes and you find your team in the throws of a Mills & Boone novel, the best way forward could be a combination of the following:

  • The more senior an employee is, the greater the expectation to report all sexual, romantic or other close relationships with other employees. This is because generally the more senior the employee, the more likely they are likely to be involved in decisions that affect the other employee in the relationship.
  • Have a disclosure policy in place requiring employees to outline any conflict of interest (or perceived conflict of interest) that a possible relationship between the two employees may cause and their plan for mitigating the conflict.

As leaders we cannot afford to be naive to the consequences. We must be proactive when it comes to workplace romances; make sure your people know what they are in for before they start getting jiggy with their colleagues.

JD

Show Me The Money!!

We are back people! New year, fresh mind and rested from the battering that was 2019. Unfortunately, our wallets, bank accounts and credit cards are looking a little worse for wear from the festive season. This might be the added motivation you needed to sit down with your boss and ask for that much needed pay rise!

A lot of companies conduct renumeration reviews on an annual basis, which means you don’t have to ask for it, but for those who don’t, it can be a tough conversation to have. So before you pluck up the courage to slot that meeting into your managers calendar, here are a few pointers that may help you attain that much needed pay bump.

  • Do your research: Take the time to understand what your market worth is. Have a look across job boards and salary surveys and arm yourself with some numbers. You may find that you’re being paid inline with market rates, or even more, which leads me to my next little tip.
  • Illustrate your reasons: Pay increases aren’t a given, and to be fair, you’ve accepted a role knowing what it pays, so you’re going to need to highlight where you’ve added value and why you should be compensated for it. Clear examples of going above and beyond and adding more to your role than what’s expected. Make a list, check it twice…. You know the rest.
  • Have a plan B: So, you might not get the money you want but there might be options on the table such as flexible working arrangements, more holiday time, training allowances. Be open minded to suggestions outside of salary that could increase your skill base and add to your quality of life.
  • Listen and be gracious: A lot of people approach this with their backs up, this isn’t going to help your cause. Listen, take feedback, deliver your points and thank them for their time and consideration. You’re not always going to like what you hear but it’s important to take on what is said and if you don’t get the desired result, understand what you need to do to get there.

Have you asked for a pay rise before? How did you approach it? Keen to hear how it went.

Asking for a renumeration review is not unreasonable but make sure you approach it in the right way with an open mind. In the words of Mick Jagger “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you find, you get what you need”.

 

JD

New Years Resignations?

It’s that time of the year again when we all get somewhat of an opportunity to take a little bit of a timeout and relax, reflect and plan. Well I’ll take 2 out of the 3, Christmas with my family is anything other than relaxing, but I digress.

As leaders, it’s a time to take stock and look towards the future while taking learnings from the year just gone. But don’t forget, our people are doing the same thing and some of them are using this time to decide on whether your organisation is the right place for them to be in 2020 and beyond. Some of them have already made the decision to split!

Have you seen any of these signs from your people this year?

  • They’re just not at work: A sure fire sign of disengagement is frequent absences. Don’t get me wrong here, people need holidays and time to recover when they’re sick, but an increase in last minute unplanned absences could mean that you’re about to lose one of your people.
  • Signs of dissatisfaction: A sudden attitude shift and/or a rise in complaints that relate to work could indicate that someone isn’t happy doing what they’re doing. In cases like this, the horse may have already bolted, but like all situations, catching a shift in attitude early could be the difference between a new year’s resignation and a productive and performing team member.
  • Gaslighting: It’s an unfortunate but all too common thing to burn bridges on the way out. Employees who are causing friction within your team may be preparing to light a match. Beware of the gas lighters!
  • Punctuality: Everyone is late from time to time, but when late becomes a habit and there is no fear of consequence, you’ve likely got a case of someone who’s checked out and really doesn’t care.

Anything there raising red flags for you? There are loads more signs and I’d be keen to hear from you on what you’ve seen in the past, but just know that while we plan to move our organisations forward, not everyone is on the bus. Keep a look out for disengagement, save yourself a headache and tackle it early.

Happy Holidays – JD

The growing importance of turnkey HR services

Let’s assume that your organisation is ready for growth. Bringing on board the right talent at the right time is critical to maintaining consistent development of your brand, however there are a number of contributing factors to making this process a success. More often than not, we subconsciously spend our time stood beneath the funnel instead of understanding how to build, maintain and improve it to manufacture consistent success.

This mini-series will look at how the modern HR function is evolving faster than ever at an enterprise level, but how smaller business can equally benefit from technological and service advancements – but with a fraction of the overall investment.

Priority 1 – The Checklist

The points below show my basic checklist for the necessary ingredients to build a successful talent management programme for a growing brand. The pros and cons to each of these will be explained in more detail throughout the series. Be honest – if you can’t confidently tick off the majority of these then you are likely to face recurring issues within the growth process.

  • Do you have an internal talent management system to profile all new and historical candidates into your own internal talent community?
  • Do you segment your candidate pool into role specific / skillset specific / salary specific verticals?
  • Do you communicate regularly with your Talent Community? If yes – how is this delivered? (feedback / progress)
  • Is your department creating a range of talent or culture specific content to be released via social media channels?
  • How do you plan for succession?
  • Are you collecting feedback from new starters and analysing workforce trends?

These are the basics. You can always optimise these elements, however in my experience, too many small to medium enterprises believe an integrated talent management programme to be costly, lacking in value and time consuming in comparison to other perceived “business critical” HR services.

Priority 2 – Piecing the puzzle

The basic systems required to run an effective talent programme exist in a number of forms and no longer require a majority of the company’s budget to implement.
Talent management software, ATS platforms (applicant tracking systems) and HCM systems (Human Capital Management) are so numerous in today’s world that there is literally a solution to any common business challenge.

The question is, what solution is a best-fit to enable growth, retention and an efficient talent strategy?

Whether your company employs a standalone internal recruitment team, or whether this is an added responsibility for a generic HR function, too many businesses prioritise a ‘CV vs role’ approach and don’t think about the bigger picture.

How is the business perceived within our own vertical? Is our content encouraging a higher quality, potentially passive candidate to engage with us directly? If a key staff member suddenly left the business, do we have the resources to make an immediate replacement?
More often than not, a business will spend a small fortune across a range of advertising mediums, agency searches and assessment centres.

The alternative however is a more efficient solution generating higher brand visibility at a lower cost!

Integrating a cloud based ATS platform at a cost per user basis will not only control cost but also allow greater visibility into the talent community your business creates. Working in tandem with internal marketing teams.

Priority 3 – deployment and execution

The relationship between People, System and Process is critical to ensure everything runs according to plan.

The aim of any talent function should be to drive company growth through the attraction of high performing individuals who share the same cultural goals as their organisation.

Every step of the journey should be reviewed, especially in the early days to make sure a solution really is a ‘best-fit’ for the end-goal. Whether implementation is carried out in-house our outsourced, the value is in the data!

What trends can we identify? Are there any common themes we can pick out on the back of previous successful hires? How does out talent community react to our engagement, and what steps to we need to implement on the back of this?

Our next article will cover the do’s and don’ts of candidate attraction and how to optimise engagement from a new target talent community.

Introducing Nichola Woodhead

We’re delighted to announce a new member of the Logical Resources team in the UK.

Following a glut of new client wins over recent weeks, Nichola Woodhead has joined as an Account Manager.

With over seven years’ experience in the industry, Nichola brings a wealth of insight and knowledge from her time with BWD, Better Placed and Brook Street. She will be working closely with our Divisional Manager for Water, Harrison Woodward, to source the best candidates for our clients in this sector, while also supporting the wider UK team across a variety of services.

Commenting on joining the businesses, Nichola said:

“I love working with candidates to help them make that next step in their career, and get a huge amount of pride by helping people on their own personal journey. The best part of the job for me is having a happy candidate, and with the fantastic portfolio of clients looking for great talent, I’m sure Logical will be a great place for me to continue this work.”

Please join us in welcoming Nichola to the business.

Introducing Present Works

Logical Resources is a business that has always adapted to changes in the marketplace quicker than the competition.

One of the biggest trends we’ve spotted recently is the importance of marketing in the talent journey. For many businesses, the way they portray themselves – everywhere from their own site, to social media, to reviews on feedback sites such as Glassdoor – can have a huge impact on how appealing they are to prospective employees. With so much competition for the best staff, it is imperative that businesses effectively market the reasons why their organisation is a great place for talented individuals to grow and prosper.

So many conversations with clients were bringing up the issue of attracting new talent that we felt we needed a robust service that could help to engage and inspire the next generation of talent to join our clients.

We are therefore very proud to announce our new partnership with marketing strategy experts Present Works.

With a combined 40 years experience across the whole A-to-Z of marketing, the Present Works team will be bringing their pragmatic approach to marketing to our wider TMaaS offer. They will support us in developing strategies and delivering campaigns for clients, adding value throughout the talent management journey.

If you’re an in-house HR or recruitment expert looking to supercharge your talent journey, get in touch here.

We’re hiring

WHO WE ARE

Since the creation of Logical Resources in 2001, the organisation has achieved growth on an international scale working with some of the most influential technology brands globally. We believe that understanding current market trends, producing evidence based content and expertly driven talent attraction campaigns will add value and facilitate growth across any organisation.

From securing our first client, the business has evolved strategically in line with the growth of individual vertical markets covering cloud technology, cyber security, civil engineering and water treatment solutions.

In recent years, Logical Resources has developed a wider range of services to complement the core Executive Search solution and provide a wider Talent Management as a Service (TMaaS) model which utilises a technology driven approach to recruitment and the creation of “talent communities” which in turn will add value to current and future campaigns for our customers, be that at senior sales or leadership level.

Logical Resources currently operates out of three locations globally, our Leeds based HQ, Melbourne Australia and Long Beach California.

OUR VALUES

One of the core values of our business is the consistent and achievable progression on offer to each of our employees.

Two of our current company directors are former company trainees and now run our UK and Australian divisions through hard work, determination and creative thinking.

We give every new team member the best tools to prosper. All new employees are provided with a two week structured training programme, Company phone, laptop, individual workspace and flexible working holidays where necessary. We also provide private healthcare insurance including 50% off Virgin gym memberships.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT (TECHNOLOGY SECTOR)

Working from our Leeds HQ, you will be building a portfolio of strategic clients in line with an agreed business plan for your industry vertical.

Working hours are typically 8:30am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday with occasional out of hours work which is rewarded with a healthy bonus scheme depending on financial performance vs target.

When established, you will be expected to travel nationally meeting existing and prospective clients with the view to becoming a preferred supplier for new vacancies, niche searches and market research assignments.

The life of a recruitment consultant is determined by the application of the employee.
Successful consultants immerse themselves within a chosen market and endeavour not only to establish a strong physical network of candidates and clients but also choose to take a personal interest within that vertical surrounding business trends, important acquisitions and industry related news content.

Typical roles we source include:

  • Business Development
  • Sales Manager
  • Sales Director
  • VP Sales
  • Software Developer
  • Pre-sales Consultant
  • Solutions Architect

We need out-of-the-box thinkers with a passion for business who can see a problem and create a solution to match the need of the client whilst endeavoring to do so to provide the best possible ROI for the customer.

Company rewards in addition to the uncapped bonus scheme include private medical insurance and several annual foreign incentive trips, fully expensed. Recent trips have included a week in Ibiza, the Tommorowland Festival and our upcoming trip to Phuket in Thailand.

Email kurt.wagner@logicalresources.com with your application or to discuss the role further.

Continue your journey in recruitment with Logical Resources.

Is this the world’s best office Christmas party?

Recruitment bosses reward employees with Christmas party in Thai party capital Phuket

With Christmas just around the corner the time has come again for Brits up and down the country to muddle through the social minefield of the Office Christmas Party, with awkward small talk, drunken mishaps and office politics promising a night you’d rather forget come January.

However, this year all that is changing thanks to one set of generous directors who are treating their team to the office Christmas do of a lifetime – an all-expenses paid, seven night blow out on Thailand’s party island of Phuket.

Directors at recruitment firm Logical Resources Sales & Technical Recruitment set its UK and Melbourne teams the most ambitious revenue target in the history of the company, with the promise that if the target was reached the whole office would be jetting off to Thailand’s party capital.

Both teams reached the aggressive target before the deadline, resulting in what promises to be the best office Christmas party in the world!

For seven nights, all employees from the UK and Australia offices will enjoy some well-earned downtime at the luxury Novotel at Kamala Beach, just north of Patong Beach famous for its lively nightlife.

Director, Rob Carlton, said: “We believe that recognition in the workplace has the power to transform lives, and this is an attitude we’ve taken at Logical Resources Sales & Technical Recruitment over the years. An engaged, committed workforce is absolutely critical to maintaining a positive internal culture, as well as generating business growth, so it makes sense to us to reward our employees when it’s due.

“We set some really aggressive targets for this incentive, so it’s testament to the team’s passion, commitment, and ability that they managed to succeed, helping our clients to achieve their goals while also reaching our own business objectives.”

Logical Resources Sales & Technical Recruitment’s commitment to staff training and wellbeing has been the catalyst for its sustained growth since 2001, and the business now boasts offices in Leeds, Melbourne and California.

Kurt Wagner, UK Director at Logical Resources, said: “I started at Logical as a graduate, and, under Rob’s guidance, have worked my way up to my current role where I head up the UK operation. Rob’s commitment to supporting and developing the individuals he sees have potential is astounding, and I couldn’t think of a better reward for such a hardworking team than such an amazing Christmas party.”

As well as the Thailand extravaganza, employees at Logical Resources have previously been incentivised with two trips to the party isle of Ibiza, and a stay in Barcelona. The team have also previously travelled to Belgium to join 400,000 others at Tomorrowland, one of the world’s most in-demand festivals whose 2018 tickets sold out in less than an hour.