Resourcing

You should always be free to leave

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I’m not sure about you, but when I think back to my early twenties I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I ended up studying a postgraduate and entering into the world of HR mostly based on the advice of friends and family. I figured that if it didn’t work out, I could leave and do something else. Fortunately, it turned out to be the right career.

Having seen my son entering into the world of work last year, much of his experience has been similar to mine. A vague idea of the kinds of stuff that he likes doing and is good at. Less certain about what he wants to do and where he wants to do it. But an understanding that his first job won’t be his last job and that he will work for good and employers and sometimes have to move on. I’m sure neither he nor I are particularly unique.

But imagine if the mistake you made in choosing your first job meant that you had to pay off thousands of pounds in “debt” for “training” that didn’t lead to any formal qualifications. Of course it would all be in the small print of the contract, you’d have signed to say you accepted it, but how many of us in our 20s would either read the agreements to that level of detail, or be so cynical to imagine it would all go horribly wrong so quickly?

Unfortunately that’s the case for hundreds of young people every year who are approached by companies offering them placements with prestigious brands and training that can take as little as a few weeks but result in an obligation to repay tens of thousand of pounds if they leave before the fixed term of their “graduate scheme”. These companies have been highlighted as part of a campaign by Tanya de Grunwald. The stories shared by individuals trapped on these schemes is shocking and resonates with some of the personal stories I’ve also heard, where even in the case of some of the most personal and disruptive life events, the exit fees have been applied and legally enforced.

This is very different to the study aid that most organisations offer to employees who have been in their service for a number of years. Someone who has time to understand the company and the work before making a personal choice to undertake study for a qualification and commitment to repayment in the case they leave. These are young people at one of the most anxious and vulnerable points in their lives making a multi thousand pound commitment without knowing anything about the company or the work and then being threatened by lawyers and debt collectors if they leave. And of course this disproportionately impacts those without the family support or connections to fully understand the implications of the contract.

Exit fees aren’t illegal, although you can make a good argument that they should be, and these organisations can argue they’re doing nothing wrong and that the contracts are set out and explained. And whilst client companies are willing to contract with them, then the practice is legitimatised. But in a world where big organisations sign up to the Living Wage, Social Mobility pledges and employability programmes it feels pretty incongruous that at the same time they’re facilitating a modern version of bonded labour.

Which is why, if you’re running an organisation it is worth checking out whether you’re supporting this kind of activity and whether you think it reflects the values of your organisation or whether your commitments to society stop before they come to the actions of your supply chain. If you’re interested and want to do something about it you can find out more and sign up to the campaign here.

Building the future

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Rarely a week goes by without a headline or story about a particular skills shortage, last week in the UK it was the film industry but you can add to that IT skills, freight drivers and even lawyers – heaven forbid. And whilst, like most of our news stories these days, there is an element of hyperbole and “story making”, there is also a common link. That is organisations’ collective inability to properly invest in future skills.

With the exception of an extreme event – pandemic, ash cloud, insurrection to name but a few – businesses would be deemed to be negligent if they failed to build resilience into their supply chain and as a result were unable to deliver their core product or service. Supermarket supply chains were such a big story exactly because we are so used to turning up in our local shop and finding everything that we have on our shopping list. The planning and thought that goes into the supply chain far outweighs anything that organisations commit to the workforce planning. And yet “people are [their] greatest asset”.

The abundance of routes into qualification now have never been better or of a higher standard. Add to that that organisations in the UK are already paying into the apprenticeship levy, it begs the question what stands in the way of better, more thoughtful planning and resilience in the workforce planning? When HR teams (in particular) talk about wanting to be more strategic and having more influence at the “top table”, then you have to ask why they aren’t championing this more successfully? How many really understand the broader skills horizon versus just hoping that their latest recruitment campaign or family friendly policy will solve their current issues?

Our job should not only be to meet the current needs, but to anticipate and protect the supply for the future. That means we need to understand not only future needs, but likely supply, the demographic and geographical challenges of our markets and look to build the interventions now that may not serve us, but will be gratefully received by those that follow. That’s the proper work, the strategic work that we want to do and yet, when there is the opportunity, too often fail to take up. But what if we did?

Don’t look back

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I stand to be corrected, but if memory serves me well I’ve only once employed a direct team member in two different organisations. And in that case it was many years later and after they had already left the organisation in question. To say that I find it peculiar when people hire people from their previous teams, is an understatement. It completely baffles me.

Let’s start first of all with the moral arguments, or those of good and decent etiquette. Whilst there are often contractual and legal reasons for not seeking to solicit previous employees, there’s also in my opinion a really simple point of etiquette. A bit like stalking an ex on the internet to look at the pictures of them with their new partner, or driving slowly past the house that you once lived in to see what they’ve done with the decor, there is something a little bit icky and unbecoming about going back into an organisation that has been part of your past to make it part of your future again.

But more than this, it also infers a limited self confidence and a level of protectionism and closed mindedness. The chance that the very best people that are available to do the job that you need doing are in the place that you previously worked is highly improbable. There are of course certain circumstances that might prove extenuating, when a full team moves from one organisation to a near competitor, for example. But these are nearly always closed off by the contractual restrictions I mentioned above.

One of the things that I’ve loved throughout my career is working with different people, with different perspectives, ideas and approaches. Sometimes learning to get on and find your groove can take a bit of time, but that’s as much about stretching yourself and adapting to other people’s styles. In many ways that’s one of the joys of moving to a different organisation, learning new things, new ways and working with new people (incidentally that’s also one of the joys of moving sector). Bringing the people that you’ve previously worked with is going to limit that stretch and potentially lead you to continue to have the blind spots that you previously were unaware of.

Would I rule out ever working for a CEO I’ve worked with before? No, but I’d want to know that there was enough time and space between it to make sure that they’d changed and so had I. I’d want to know that the organisation was entirely different and there would be things that I would need to learn and develop in. But would I ever take the people who’d worked for me with me? I just wouldn’t. For the very simple fact that I would want them to grow and develop and learn from different leaders in different contexts. When push comes to shove, no matter how brilliant they are it would be better for them, and it would be better for me.

Moving on up

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A few years ago I wrote a post about internal promotion and the comparison to external candidates. It is fair to say that it raised quite a bit of debate at the time and a range of differing views. If you don’t have the time, or the inclination, to read the original post, my point was essentially that internal candidates should be given more benefit of doubt when being compared to external candidates.

One of the main challenges that internal candidates have is that their limitations and areas for growth most likely already known. Which, whilst some would argue is a benefit, can often be a reason to look beyond them. So does that mean that as an ambitious internal candidate you have to move on and look externally? Well obviously sometimes that’s the right thing to do, but before doing that, how about trying to address some of those gaps?

Every HR person and recruiting manager is different and of course I only speak for myself here, but when I’m interviewing or assessing an internal candidate I’m quite happy for there to be gaps between the role and the individual, it is only to be expected. But I want the candidate to be aware of that too. And that is particularly true if the role that you’re applying for is a promotion.

To put it more bluntly, no-one applying for a promotion should have nothing to learn. In fact it is entirely counter intuitive to believe that could be the case. Whilst there are always financial and other considerations, and I don’t mean in any way to belittle these, my experience is that the deciding factor for most people is that they want to pick something new up – more responsibility, a different team, a different department or function, a different business area.

Yet the moment you put them in the assessment process, the justification of worth can start and completely overshadow the very thing that I want to see. I want to know the individual has understood the requirements of the role, has assessed themselves against them, has made an appraisal of the areas that they can and can’t currently demonstrate and are willing and able to work on the gaps. I want them to have identified the very best person doing a similar job and asked themselves the questions, “how do I get to be that good?” not, “how do I persuade them I’m good enough?”

Being an internal candidate is hard – for all the reasons that I’ve mentioned in the previous post. No matter how we assess external candidates, they will always have the ability to add more spin and positioning than we will ever fully see through until they’re in post. But at the same time, internal candidates have a whole host of data, information and connections that they can use to their advantage. They just need to make sure that they absolutely do.