The Top 10 Growth Roles In IT

Why Recruitment Agencies and Councils Make Powerful Partners in Building Local Talent.

As we move into the final quarter of the financial year, it’s a great time to reflect on the strong performance of Q3 and set our expectations for what’s shaping up to be a mixed but potentially high-impact Q4.

Tackling the Talent Crunch: Current Challenges in Finance & Accounting Recruitment in Australia (And How to Overcome Them)

Australia's construction, supply chain, and manufacturing sectors face several challenges impacting recruitment and workforce management. Key issues include:​

Australian Human Resources (HR) professionals are facing multiple challenges such as changing workforce demographics, AI and the ethical concerns and changes in compliance. Here are some of the challenges currently faced by HR teams:

CEOs today are facing several significant challenges when managing staff, here are some of the current concerns and potential strategies to overcome them:

It’s definitely a funny old market. On one hand I’ve got a friend with a sizeable retail business telling me his last ad for casual workers attracted over 900 responses and then I’ve seen people come to us after having chronically unfilled job vacancies in their business costing them an absolute fortune in lost customers and reputation. Granted the casual workers aren’t the skilled labour market we work in but I’m not sure anyone could have guessed this shifting job market 6 months ago. Seek are quoting job ad numbers are highest since the Covid-19 pandemic and we’re definitely feeling it at Norwest Recruitment. Not all companies are thriving of course and my heart goes out to those but many are and recruitment plans for our clients in Western Sydney are pedal to the metal. So that means that skilled job seekers have choice. Not only are they a little gun shy at leaving the company that kept them through the tough times of Covid but they now have plenty of options. Their counterparts who were let go when Covid hit will also be wanting to make it into your shortlist. It’s going to take some due diligence to work out which one you want in your business. We all know the cost of a bad recruitment hire. One hiring mistake I’ve seen a few times in the last month may be because some hiring managers aren’t aware of the changed market conditions and are feeling over confident. Maybe they think there’s 900 skilled professionals applying for every job. Four times this month I’ve heard of offers to candidates being less than the salary they were represented at. What??? One thing I’ve learned in life – don’t mess with people’s salaries. It’s very personal and it’s often attached to their status and ego. We all live to our salary capacity. There usually isn’t any wriggle room to drop. Don’t mess with it. This is what happens next. You will not get another bite at that cherry. Don’t think for a minute you’ll be able to come up to meet their salary expectation once they’ve rejected your low-ball offer. It’s over. Very rarely have I seen job seekers accept the reduced salary offer. It’s a risky move. If they’re talking to another company you’ve lost them. Sometimes I’ve seen them decline and then accept the second higher offer. Sometimes. But here’s how that scenario plays out. It’s can be even worse than the jobseeker declining. They accept it. They accept it with a bad taste in their mouth and then keep their eye on the market and feelers out with recruitment agencies. As soon as a Recruiter represents another role to them they’re gone – two months into starting in the new job. It’s disruptive, costly and time consuming. Back to square one for you. So, recruitment 101 tip. Unless the job seeker doesn’t meet the job criteria and hasn’t got the right experience do not think this is a good time to save money. Don’t risk the best person in your shortlist going to your competitor. Here’s to attracting and retaining the very best people in 2021.  Written by Erica Westbury, Managing Director of Norwest Recruitment.

We are so proud of our Managing Director Erica Westbury who was acknowledged this month by Ross Clennett a leading industry commentator and influencer as one of 24 Outstanding Women In Our Industry You Should Know About. Click here to read more

I recently met up with Nayyar Ghaznavi, CIO for Rexel Australia, and asked him about his experience during the Covid19 crisis as it unfolded. The Rexel Group is Headquartered in Paris with around 28,000 staff globally, including around 1000 staff in Australia. I’m sure in your position every day is different, but could you please take your mind back to February 2020. Can you tell me as the CIO at Rexel, what was top of mind for you? [Nayyar Ghaznavi] Actually, in January there was already some apprehension about the impact of Covid19 based on what we were seeing particularly in Europe and North America. I was in Canada at the time for a conference and there was a lot of discussion within the team in Toronto about the impact Covid19 may have on all countries and what we could as IT Leaders to get ahead of the potential curve to support our business. Around February, we as an executive team started to plan how we would respond to the rising tide of the pandemic. We knew there were going to be effects to our staff, our supply chain and the business as a whole. We knew we had to have plans in place in case it spread the way it did in the US and Europe and be as prepared as possible to meet the challenge this would pose. From early March, the Executive Team was meeting daily, which really helped as the Government guidance was changing so fast and we kept adapting to those changes. Top of mind was “How do we ensure the health of our staff, our customers and our business?” What projects were you working on and did you have goals you were looking to achieve in your team for 2020? [Nayyar Ghaznavi] Our major deliverable was a new eCommerce platform which we believe is the best in the industry with its rich content and features and functions. We have seen a great boost in online sales as a result of the new platform which continues to grow month by month. We also had a few projects related to optimising our business, especially around back-office services that have reduced our cost to serve [customers]. At what point do you think you realised Covid-19 was going to impact Rexel and did you realise it was going to hit as badly as it did? Why? [Nayyar Ghaznavi]. The Executive team have been focused on the health of our staff, customers and the health of our business, which was driving our key decisions under COVID-19. The plans we put in place buffered to some degree the impact of COVID-19 on the business, relative to the impact on the general economy. I was having monthly meetings with our global CIO and kept him updated with messages in between those formal sessions on how we are ‘mobilising’ our staff to WFH. How did it impact Rexel? What did it mean to your staff and products and services? [Nayyar Ghaznavi] I’m really proud that as a business we haven’t had to make anyone redundant as a result of Covid19. There were impacts, the staff (including the Executive Team) were asked to reduce their working days per week for the long term health of the business. Our MD made sure there was very clear, regular and transparent communication throughout to all staff. Front line staff, generally speaking, were still onsite as all our branches nationally still need to service the customer who walks through the door. We did see an increase in online sales as a result of COVID-19, but would expect all companies saw this as a result of the changes in the way customers interacted with their suppliers. We had Click & Collect from our branches, appropriate social distancing and sanitisation, all of that came into play.