What to do if you just can't find the right staff? | Issue #21
In this bulletin I look at hiring, consider the case for more bank holidays and recommend an article on managing underperformance in your team.
Welcome to the latest edition of The Leadership Bulletin.
The question of political leadership continues to dominate the headlines, but with inflation high, the labour market tight and predictions of a recession in 2023, the dashboard lights are flashing for most businesses right now.
Put another way, this is a challenging time to be running a business and I hope this and future bulletins can play a small part in helping you overcome those challenges.
The first thing I want to discuss this week is the issue Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, said was “the first thing that businesses want to talk to me about.” It’s the challenge of hiring people in the current labour market.
IN FOCUS: THE CHALLENGES OF HIRING IN A TIGHT LABOUR MARKET.
The challenge of recruiting is one of the most common issues I hear from business leaders and managers right now. Some businesses have found novel ways to overcome this challenge that work for them, perhaps by making some roles remote-by-default so that you can draw upon talent from anywhere in the country. For other businesses, the challenge has proven insolvable.
When I’m advising on this topic, I often encourage business leaders to step back and think about why they are recruiting in the first place. Usually, it's one of two reasons: a shortage of skills or a shortage of capacity.
There are two key ways to bring new skills into your business: employing new people, or upskilling existing staff. And there are two key ways to bring extra capacity into your business: employing more people, or investing in new technology and equipment. When businesses can't hire the people they want, this gives them a two-step plan as a potential alternative:
Upskill your existing staff with the skills you need
Invest in new technology to help you do more with what you've got
I know both of these can be easier said than done, but it’s worth your time and energy to try and find ways to make them work in your business. After all, if you upskill your existing staff you’re not only filling skills gaps in your organisation, but research shows your staff are more likely to stay with you in response to your support for them. And if you invest in new technology, you could achieve some of the key productivity gains that businesses need to grow and be competitive in the long-term.
I’d love to hear some case studies from Leadership Bulletin readers on how either upskilling or investing in new technology has worked in your organisation. You can email me on lee@edfolio.co.uk.
IS THERE A CASE FOR MORE BANK HOLIDAYS?
Earlier this year, the UK Government estimated that an extra Bank Holiday cost £2.39 billion in lost economic output. (Other estimates of the impact of bank holidays have varied and often been lower, including one produced by PWC which estimated the cost at £831mn). This got me thinking: if the four day working week is a good idea from a productivity perspective, as many people claim, would extra bank holidays cost much at all? Could the extra work done on the other working days, or making any new bank holiday on a day when productivity is usually lower (e.g. Friday), reduce the overall impact on the economy? And when we factor in the gains for tourism and leisure industries, could the benefits of some well-timed extra bank holidays actually be greater than the negatives?
Personally, I think we should at least consider some extra bank holidays, perhaps Union Day (1 May), when the Treaty of Union came in to effect, Guy Fawkes Night (5 November), marking the day the plot to kill the king was scuppered, or Armistice Day/Remembrance Day (11 November) commemorating the end of WWI and remembering all those who have fallen in conflict. If we wanted to have four new Bank Holidays, then the Patron Saint Days (St David - 1 March; St Patrick - 17 March; St George - 23 April; and St Andrew - 30 November) might provide four ideal, if rather crowded, candidates.
FROM ‘LOCKDOWN SIDE HUSTLE’ TO THRIVING BUSINESS.
Almost everyone I know tried something new during the pandemic. Whether it was knitting or jogging, writing a book or starting a business. The BBC News website has just run a feature on some of the lockdown side hustles that people have turned into their full time business. Even without the appalling pandemic as an instigator, could more people benefit from time off outside of work to really consider what they want to do and discover their dream business or side hustle? Click here to read the piece.
MANAGING UNDERPERFORMANCE.
At Edfolio, one of the key aspects of our Leadership Skills Matrix is called “Performance and Underperformance”. The second part of that is crucial; identifying and turning around underperformance in your team is one of the most important things you sometimes have to do as a manager. The Harvard Business Review has just published a new article with 7 strategies to try if your team is underperforming. Well worth a read. Click here.