Style over Substance

As someone who travels a lot, I suffer the eternal dilemma of how to eat well on the run. Healthy cold food is relatively easy to find but sometimes the need for a hot meal leads to a much harder search. I must confess to occasionally succumbing to the dark side and having a Burger King or KFC, but I prefer something a bit healthier and enjoy noodles or rice from Wasabi. OK so it probably isn't any healthier than junk food but my conscience feels less burdened!!!

Recently Wasabi have changed the packaging they serve the food in from wide, but shallow, plastic trays to cardboard tubs that resemble large Ben & Jerrys ice cream pots. Now I understand the reason why, and Wasabi's move to be more environmentally friendly with it's packaging has to be commended. However the previous wide but shallow trays meant an even distribution of chicken and noodles or beef and rice, or whatever combination you choose. The new tubs invariably mean rice or noodles at the bottom and chicken or beef at the top. The shape of the tub also makes it very difficult to mix the different ingredients together oneself. The net result is a less satisfying lunchtime experience.

So in trying to achieve a high profile headline benefit (being environmentally friendly) they have lost sight of their customer experience and their core business (serving an enjoyable meal). The reality is a bit of thought could have achieved both objectives.

The reason this kind of oversight happens is that many suppliers are not consumers of their own products. What seems like a good idea in theory, often presents challenges in day to day usage. The same is also true of recruitment technology providers (to be fair I am sure the same is also true in most industry sectors).

So why do the providers that we all rely on day in and day out, focus on an extra bell here and an additional whistle there, rather than the fundamental usability of their core products? The truth is that our purchasing criteria encourage these providers to focus on the wow factors, to develop the bells and whistles. Optimising a fundamental process from three steps down to two doesn't sell systems, even though it will probably deliver more benefit to the users than Bell A or Whistle B.

Now, whilst I am proposing that we modify our purchasing criteria to look in more detail at the core systems we are purchasing, I don't honestly believe that I am going to encourage so many prospects to do this that the providers change behaviour. However if one company does it, that one company will probably purchase a solution that works better for them long term than the style over substance headline grabber they might otherwise have purchased.

I know many providers these days have user groups and focus groups and beta testers and similar programs. These are to be commended and should absolutely continue and become even more widely adopted. But lets not kid ourselves that these kind of activities can address fundamental usability issues that originate at original design and concept stage. These kind of issues are much harder to address and, in defence of the software providers, to really get this right requires a significant investment in prototyping and UI specialists which is very difficult to achieve financially at early stages of product development.

However, the battle to develop too much functionality, in order to have more bells and whistles than the competition, does detract from the quality of the core functionality. And I acknowledge that it would take a brave company to risk missing out on those valuable, but short sighted, customers whose purchasing decisions are made on acquiring maximum functionality at minimum cost. Ironically even though 80% of said functionality will not be used!!

But there is that mythical third way. So a plea to my fellow software providers; Yes I know that you employ some fantastically talented developers and I also know you can develop lots of sexy functionality that you have seen elsewhere. However if your developers concentrate on making your solution the best it can be AND, you develop close relationships with providers of complementary solutions, who are focussed on their core functionality, as a means to providing that additional functionality, your customers will benefit from a combined solution that is truly best of breed.

Sadly, I can't help thinking that the current epidemic of 'not invented here syndrome' will mean that last plea will be ignored by all but the enlightened few.

Generation Y - A Wider Focus Please

I have been reading the recent debate about recruiting Generation Y with great interest and an increasing sense of frustration. I have great respect for experts such as Andy Headworth, who talk a lot of sense and make a lot of valid suggestions about the issues that companies need to tackle in relation to managing their Gen Y workforce. However, there in lies my problem. The debate centres around what companies should be doing to attract and manage employees of a certain age. NO STOP, sorry but companies should be taking these suggestions on board in relation to employees of all ages.

The kind of issues that are associated with Generation Y are;

• A need to respected by their employers. I'm an awful long way from being Gen Y, but if my employer doesn't respect me, I'm looking for another job. Fortunately I have a great employer, so no issue there!
  
• They want a sense of purpose and meaning in their work. Again, in middle age, so do I. If I don't understand why I am doing something, how can I optimise what I am doing to achieve maximum results?
• Young people expect to be coached through problems not just told what to do. Well I may be half way to my pension but if you coach me on the best way to tackle a problem rather than letting me find my own way, aren't you developing me and therefore getting best value moving forward? Surely thats good management?
  
• Social Responsibility is a key issue, and has always been a key issue for young people. Just because human nature means most of us become more temperate with age, to suggest that social responsibility is not a major issue for all ages is hugely patronising.
  
• They are entrepeneurial. This is very true and the success of Young Enterprise is testament to that, but are you really telling me that the likes of Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and many, many others are born of a generation that wasn't?
  
• Gen Ys want to be challenged. Hello, me again!
• Generation Y expect potential employers to have interactive websites with Social Networks, Blogs, Forums etc that they can interact with. I am a bit long in the tooth and cynical to expect these things, but sure as hell if a potential employer has them then they are more likely to attract my talents than one that hasn't.
  

Companies should absolutely take the advice of experts such as Andy, but apply them to their whole workforce. Their are two main reasons for doing this;

• Regardless of whether you consider Generation Y to be suffering from spoilt brat syndrome or not, if you consider treating a section of your workforce differently you will alienate the rest of your workforce and lose your best talent. However this should not be used as a reason not to act, but to implement change across your whole workforce.
• The sort of measures that are being proposed to attract and retain Generation Y will be equally attractive to Gen X, Baby Boomers etc. and help you attract and retain the best talent across the board.

As an industry lets lose the Gen Y tag and adopt a Gen Everyone tag instead.

Personal Buzz Monitoring

I was on the train on the way home on Friday checking Twitter, when I read a tweet from SJDelaney about the death of Jesse Helms. Being a curious kind a guy and not being up to speed on my American politics, I googled Jesse Helms to find out who he was. As is often the case for such questions my next action was to click the Wikipedia link, but instead of being greeted with the usual Wiki page, I came across the simple statement "Jesse Helms, burn in hell"

My curiosity really sparked now, I googled again and started to read and when I came back to Wikipedia a few minutes later, normal service had been resumed. Now Jesse clearly did a lot of good in his life, but this is overshadowed by his extreme views on many issues such as gay rights, abortion, ethnic minorities and other such topics. I personally find many of his points of view abhorrent and the insensitive manner in which he choose to express his opinions equally unacceptable.

However, whilst my heart is firmly in the camp that says the internet is a forum for free speech and should not be regulated or censored , I can't and don't condone the sort of cyber vandalism that I witnessed on Friday. If you have a point of view, set it out in a rational manner. Jesse's record speaks for itself, by resorting to personal insults on a recently deceased person who has no right of reply, you lower yourself to his level.

But the fact remains that we have, quite rightly, a forum for free speech. We have known this for some time and we advise our clients to monitor what is being said about them online. OK, most companies understand the issues, but what about candidates?

Recently Steve O'Neil of Security Watchdog wrote a good article about using the internet for background checking. Now professional background checking companies are trained to take a balanced view of information that they find about individuals. However an increasing number of companies are background checking candidates themselves and some will perhaps not be so discerning about what they find. How many candidates even think about, let alone check, what has been said about them online?

As Web 2.0 type applications become an increasing part of our everyday life and many of us seize the opportunity to share our passionately held views and get involved in heated discussions about topics ranging from business to football to technology to pretty much any other topic you care to think of, should we stop to think about the online picture we are painting about ourselves and/or what other people who don't agree with our opinions may be contributing to that canvass?

It feels uncomfortable to suggest that people should have to think about about, let alone check, what is being said about them online and for most people it probably is. But I can only see the likes of social networks, blogs, twitter etc becoming more and more part of daily lives and perhaps this is something that jobseekers need to start thinking about?

Business Ethics

I was listening to Radio 4 on the way home on Friday evening. (I am still in my 30s, honest, I know the middle aged spread, grey hair and Radio 4 listening suggest otherwise) Anyway I was listening to the Friday night comedy and a funny sketch ridiculing Barclays Bank for their alleged decision to lend £750M to members of Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe.

Now little old me doesn't claim to understand politics at that level, but if it was true, Barclays would find it very difficult to justify such a decision on anything other than money making grounds. And without such justification this would offend most people's morals.

This got me thinking about my own moral integrity. Let us assume for one moment that the above allegation were true (I can't imagine the BBCs lawyers allowing Friday nights programme to be aired if it were complete fiction), I started to think about the theoretical possibility that Barclays were a prospect of mine and I had an opportunity to close a deal with them, would my moral compass allow me to go ahead with this deal?

The idealist in me would like to think not, but the realist in my is slightly embarressed to suggest that I might. My love for a conspiracy theory leads me to ask, if I dig hard enough would I find similarly morally questionable deals done by many multi-national corporates?

The truth is I don't know the answer to the above question. We all have a moral compass that guides us in life but difficult decisions are rarely a case of black and white and navigating the grey is one of the challenges we face, understanding that in these days of Web 2.0, where everybody has a voice, the wrong decision can have far reaching consequences.

Economic Slowdown - Is it really a bad thing?

According to the news, Trinity Mirror Group, who publish five national newspapers and many regional titles, are reporting a drop in advertising spend, including an 8% drop in recruitment advertising. The fact that the general reduction is across most sectors appears to point to economic slowdown as the cause.

But is economic slowdown the reason behind recruitment advertising being 8% off? Or is this also a sign our industry is reducing it's reliance on advertising for candidate sourcing and starting to more widely embrace alternatives such as Search Engine Marketing, Social Networks, Blogs and the many other Web 2.0 type solutions?

Probably if I had the time to do the research I could find evidence to back up both theories. The reality is probably that both are contributing factors. But this leads me to ask if a slowing of the economy is really a bad thing for our industry? OK, in the agency market it's not the most original question and not too many people will shed a tear if those agencies, that add little value to the process, disappear.

But what is the impact of a financial downturn to a corporate recruiter? This is a more difficult question to answer as, unlike agency recruiters, corporate recruiters didn't really exist during the last recession. So here goes with some educated guesses as to what might happen;

• Sadly some will lose their jobs. Unlike in the US, many companies here in dear old blighty, still don't understand the true value of a good corporate recruiter. So when the question is raised about how to save costs is asked and the suggestion is made to cut non core staff is made, our highly skilled corporate recruiter finds themselves seeking a more appreciative audience. Ironically, there will be companies that follow this course of action that then revert to using agencies for the recruitment they do do, often spending more than they have saved by cutting their internal capability!
• Some corporate recruiters will see an improvement in their golf handicaps. Less vacancies to fill, more candidates to fill them with, ain't life grand!
• However the enlightened ones will realise that even in a candidate rich environment, finding the best talent, who are the key to the ongoing success of ones company, is as much of a priority, maybe more so, than in a boom economy. However, with the haystack being larger than normal, finding the needle becomes more of a challenge.

So in our constant search for new and better ways to source, how do we filter out the interference that is Mr and Mrs Average? Measure our outcomes (Yes I know I'm in danger of being repetitive) But just because you are suddenly getting 50% more responses to you ad campaign, if we can prove that our successful hires are the ones you found for free on LinkedIn, we know where to devote more effort and our boss loves us because we are rationalising our recruitment spend during more challenging economic times.

Young Enterprise

A couple of weeks ago, Dan McGuire was telling me about his involvement with Young Enterprise, and invited me along to the London Finals of their Company Programme, for which as 'Young Entrepreneur of the Year' himself he had been asked to compere. For those of you not familiar with the concept it is where young people at school are encouraged to start and run their own companies, which are assessed on a range of criteria and the best ones in each local area going on to compete at regional and national level. With over 4,500 students in the London area having started this years challenge, this was the best 5 companies competing for the award.

Now those of us that know Dan, know that if you stick a microphone in his hand he usually ends up being the star of the show. He assures me that this has nothing to with the fact that Tarah, Ricky, Alex, Hannah and the team work very hard to make him look good. However I am delighted to report that last week he wasn't, not by a long stretch. Neither was the fantastic venue at Credit Suisse, nor was Levi Roots, the guest speaker, nor was the distinguished panel of judges or the various dignitaries that are always present at these kind of events.

The stars by a country mile were the five groups of young people who had come up with the ideas, formed their companies and managed and run successful businesses.

I must confess that I went along expecting a pleasant evening and to applaud the hard work and endeavours of these young companies. Well I got that completely wrong. What I actually saw was five very viable small businesses. Five companies that have better business concepts than many that have graced Dragons Den and some that grace our industry today! Five organisations that could probably support their directors and staff if, with a bit of guidance and support, they were encouraged to continue. At least two business that had the potential to be very successful SMEs with the right support. And perhaps most impressively, five presentations that were genuinely better constructed, better delivered and considerably more engaging than most of the ones I have sat through at CIPD in the last couple of days.

The travesty is that the rules of the competition force these young people to liquidate their businesses at the end of the process. But of course that's not the point and doesn't in any way detract from the value of the process. In fact, although it is an issue that should be addressed, it is only an issue because the rest of the process is such a success.

So with my evangelical preacher's hat firmly and proudly on my head. If a young person, who can demonstrate a track record in this process, applies for a job at your company, remember that is likely to be worth considerably more to you than the equivalent person with twice as many GCSEs and no life skills. And when Dan asks you to spare two hours a quarter to help advise and inspire these young entrepreneurs you better have a good excuse for saying no!!!