Musings

January 2024

You have to get three strikes before you’re fired

There is absolutely no truth in the ‘three strikes rule’ when it comes to being fired.

And it’s a real shame that this myth exists, as this is a really important process to understand.

Firings are to do with you as an individual employee, rather than your role and its value to the business.  Employers might make staff redundant if the business is suffering and they need to reduce the headcount for financial reasons, for example.  If you are fired, this is normally due to poor performance, or misconduct.

Being fired is relatively unusual, but if it happens, the employer does not need to give you three warnings.  However, they do need to follow a fair process.  In reality, for performance- related issues, you might expect your manager to work with you to try and turn things around.  So you would have some warning.  If, however, you commit serious misconduct, you can be ‘summarily dismissed’, where you receive neither any notice nor payment instead of notice.

     

     

       

         

         

           

          NOVEmber 2023

          If you stay in a job long enough, you will get promoted

          From increased pay to learning new skills, there are a lot of reasons why employees seek promotions during their professional lives.  So, it makes sense that you might be wondering what are the best ways to maximise your chances of this happening.

          One safe-looking option might be to stay put in your current job and simply wait to be promoted.  While some organisations do promote simply based on tenure, this is far from a certainty.

          In fact, I would argue that this is a particularly slow way to win a promotion, and you might see newer staff members getting promoted faster, if this is your only tactic.  The people who get promoted more quickly tend to be those who really stand out from their colleagues, who put in the extra effort, and therefore earn the extra treats.  So, rather than sitting in the background hoping one day you might get promoted, put yourself out there and make your boss take notice.

             

             

               

                 

                 

                   

                  SEPTEMBER 2023

                  Do the most technically skilled candidate will get the role?

                  Of course technical skills matter when you are applying for a job.

                  However, technical skills are far from the whole picture, and the most technically skilled person is not guaranteed to be the successful candidate.

                  Soft skills as stakeholder engagement and teamwork ethos ranking equally as important.

                  There are two takeaways here.  Firstly, while hard skills matter, you do not need to be the Albert Einstein of your industry to get a job.  And, second, brush up on your soft skills.  No matter what sector you are job hunting in, I can guarantee that they will positively impact your chances of getting hired.

                     

                     

                       

                         

                         

                           

                          JULY 2023

                          Do you pay if you use a recruiter?

                          This is a no.

                          You’ll find plenty of job listings posted by recruiters on job boards, and you may have hesitated before clicking on them because you think you will have to pay for the recruiters’ services.

                          There is no truth to this.

                          Recruiters make their money by being paid by the company doing the hiring, not the candidate looking to be hired.  So, you will not pay a cent to find a job through a recruiter in New Zealand.

                          These professionals can also offer you a lot of value, including:

                          • Workshopping your CV and Cover Letter
                          • Helping you prepare for interviews
                          • Suggesting other roles you might want to apply for

                           

                           

                             

                               

                               

                                 

                                May 2023

                                Do you need to match all the criteria in a job listing before you apply?

                                Do not get demoralised when you open up a job listing for what seems like a perfect role to find that you only tick five out of eight boxes.

                                When employers write their job listings, they’re describing their dream candidate.  And, if there’s one thing that everyone can agree on, people are not perfect.  It is similar to how, in a salary negotiation, you should always start with the high end of what you’d be happy to accept.  

                                It would be silly for the hiring manager to begin by listing anything except the perfect candidate because then they would already be starting at a lower bar.  In reality, not everything on that list is a must-have.

                                Generally speaking, as long as you meet most of the criteria, apply.

                                You never know, they might read your CV and Cover Letter and think you’re exactly what they need.

                                 

                                 

                                   

                                     

                                     

                                       

                                      March 2023

                                      Are we losing our ability to be self-sufficient?

                                      It makes me roll my eyes when someone posts on LinkedIn, starting “I don’t normally post personal stuff on LinkedIn, but …”

                                      The cynic in me does wonder if we are gradually losing our collective ability to be self-sufficient, and becoming more dependent.

                                      Dependent on:

                                      • Others – to affirm how good they are are and how good we could be
                                      • Businesses – to provide employment protection, and affiliated support such as working from home, and days off to do wellness activities
                                      • Government – to protect us from ourselves and all others.

                                      In many areas so many of us are looking to be given a protective blanket so that we can avoid responsibility and the consequences of being accountable.

                                      It is a tough old world, but we do need to put our collective hands up, our big-boy pants on, and accept it is up to us individually and collectively, and not the responsibility of others.

                                      So there, I just posted something personal!

                                       

                                       

                                         

                                           

                                           

                                             

                                            February 2023

                                            Wage-price spiral, can you combat it?

                                            With inflation running in excess of 7% annually for some months now employers are under increasing pressure to at least match that with wage and salary increases.             

                                            This is the wage-price spiral.

                                            Something employers could consider would be to offer employees a subsidised health insurance scheme.  I know of several insurance brokers who can offer businesses a company scheme incorporating a mix of different types of cover.

                                            The beauty of this approach means:

                                            • salary increases need not match the full rate of inflation
                                            • the subsidy can be inflation-proofed, and
                                            • employees are consequently locked in a little bit more with their current employer.

                                            Sounds like win-win to me, not wage-price spiral.

                                               

                                               

                                                 

                                                February 2022

                                                Is the Great Resignation really a thing?

                                                In May 2021 Anthony Klotz, a psychologist at Texas A&M (Agriculture and Mechanical) University, coined the term ‘the great resignation’ as a way of naming what occurred the month before i.e. a record number of resignations in the US workforce.

                                                In NZ headline-seeking economists and most media picked up on the term.  But I could not get my head around the concept as the country was experiencing dropping levels of unemployment, and surely a resignation is an outcome to an earlier action or decision.

                                                Then, just last month, along came Bharat Ramamurti, the US National Economic Council Deputy Director, coining a new term ‘the great upgrade’.

                                                And suddenly it all made sense to me.   The reasons why I was receiving five times the usual number of applicants for jobs when there was now unemployment well below 4%:

                                                • Covid put a premium on job security; people were gravitating away from at-risk sectors and wanting to work in industries that were either unaffected, or thriving
                                                • Border closures stopped the influx of visa-holding job seekers; while those already in the country felt the pressure of returning home as the NZ Government was not approving visa renewals
                                                • Recruiters, sensing a boom in the market and commissions, fuelled the talk of high levels of job vacancies and increasing salaries
                                                • Job boards would furiously survey candidates, recording and publicising their high levels of interest in changing jobs; thus hoping for increased job vacancies being listed, resulting in higher revenue

                                                And the result is ‘the great upgrade’.

                                                Encouraged to believe there is a candidate short employment market businesses now feel they are being forced to consider candidates who feel bold enough to apply for jobs that pay more and offer a better job title but in reality may be at a level above their true capability.

                                                For my clients I am suggesting they may need to find inventive ways to ‘hand-cuff’ their good employees and when recruiting realise that they may need to pay more in salary and benefits than they expected, and/or hire at a lower level and invest in training.

                                                   

                                                  September 2021

                                                  Is it no surprise that big organisations are so often in headlines referring to leadership missteps?

                                                  An article in the August 2021 NZ Management magazine discloses the results of a global survey by Boyden, a leadership and talent advisory firm of 75 offices in 45 countries.

                                                  Their latest world-wide talent research reveals a lack of alignment in talent to strategy, the need for a different skills matrix on the board, and a lack of alignment across the leadership team.

                                                  And the survey numbers are not at all comforting:

                                                  • 77% of respondents are confident in their organisation’s growth potential, but less than half of them are confident in having the right talent to align growth to strategy
                                                  • Half of all respondents describe their 2022 business approach as one of growth, while 26% say it is a learning opportunity
                                                  • Half of the respondents say a different mix of skills is needed on the board, but only 38% say they intend to conduct a board assessment review in the next two years.

                                                  We all know doing the same thing to try and get a different result is the definition of insanity – so it is not mad to think one in two businesses will screw things up and find they feature in the ‘leadership failure’ headlines.

                                                     

                                                    March 2021

                                                    Employing staff – a new reality dawning on employers?

                                                    The one Economist I have a lot of time for is Tony Alexander, especially since he has left his banking employer and become an independent.

                                                    His latest Tony’s View published just yesterday has a very interesting first two pages.

                                                    I’ll summarise:

                                                    Government is looking to take the opportunity to make some structural changes to immigration policy, focussing on lifting up Kiwis rather than bringing in migrants.  An interesting statistic – pre-GFC 4% of jobs in NZ were held by migrants on visas, pre-Covid that number was 8%.

                                                    What do businesses have to consider if this new reality does indeed see the dawn of a new business day?  Tony suggests we think about 8 things:

                                                    • Lobbying for more overseas labour will be a wasted exercise
                                                    • Lift capital expenditure
                                                    • Shift to outputs with less labour input
                                                    • Drop off low yielding outputs
                                                    • Focus on products which give pricing power
                                                    • Employ at a lower level and train up
                                                    • There will be labour-related cost pressures
                                                    • Plan for the new day

                                                    Interesting stuff for us all and change could well gather momentum that new Governments will not reverse.   Perhaps it is time to put on the sun block of planning new business and recruitment strategy and face the new day head on, rather than staying inside and ending up a pale imitation of what we once were.

                                                     

                                                    AUGUST 2020

                                                    When was the last time you Googled yourself?

                                                    In 2005 I wrote an article for the website of the recruitment company I was with at the time (Executive Taskforce).  Imagine my surprise a few months later when I found out that parts of what I wrote were contained in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. 

                                                    Just 2 weeks ago I Googled myself to see if the article was still on the web, and of course yes it was.

                                                    And what does this have to do with recruitment?

                                                    When I am interviewing candidates for a role and at the end ask if they have any questions, invariably they ask me ‘what is the company culture like’.  I let them know what my own opinion is and then suggest they try Googling the company/hiring manager to see what they can learn.

                                                    Whatever they find can potentially reinforce why they feel good about the company, or dissuade them from doing so.

                                                    Maybe it is time to Google yourself and see how kindly the internet is treating you?

                                                     

                                                    July 2020

                                                    The only reason I agree with having the 90-day trial period.

                                                    I always thought that effective performance management was a better tool than invoking the opportunities available under the 90-day trial period.

                                                    And I still do.

                                                    But today I decided it is a nice-to-have.

                                                    So why the change in my thinking?

                                                    At times like these it gives small businesses the ability to ‘try-out’ a new employee – not just to see how they perform, but also to see whether their prediction of revenue growth (which led them to hiring a new employee in the first place) is correct or not.

                                                    Uncertain times = low market predictability.

                                                    The use of the 90-day trial period can cut the cost of getting it wrong.

                                                     

                                                    June 2020

                                                    Has Covid-19 changed your CV?

                                                    The short answer is, it should have.

                                                    But why?

                                                    When all businesses reopen after lockdown (and let’s hope that is nearly all of them), they will have a combination of some of these:

                                                    • Less money in the bank
                                                    • A less relevant product or service
                                                    • Fewer staff
                                                    • Dated IT systems
                                                    • An out of date price book
                                                    • Difficulty sourcing products/raw materials
                                                    • Old production machinery
                                                    • Etc.

                                                    There is any number of changes and challenges that will face the post-Covid world.

                                                    Does your CV present you as a candidate that can not only effectively do your key role, but also reflect the life and business skills you have picked up along your career path; i.e. what added-value can you bring to a business beyond your core competencies.

                                                    The more you are able to market yourself as a multi-skilled/experienced individual the more likely you will stand out from your peers and be able to help businesses tackle whatever their combination of issues are.

                                                    If your CV does not reflect this, then take a couple of your locked down hours to make the change.

                                                    Your CV is a key personal marketing document – time to make it relevant for tomorrow.

                                                     

                                                    May 2020

                                                    Lockdown Lexicon

                                                    Jacinda and Ashley, have spear-headed a great effort in getting us to this point and as I begin reflection on where I am personally at, I realise I am wanting a different voice to be added to the mix.   And that is the voice of people and business.

                                                    I am now tiring of the Lockdown Lexicon I am hearing every day:

                                                    • We went early and we went hard
                                                    • Flatten the curve
                                                    • Unprecedented one in one hundred years event
                                                    • [Add your own favourite]

                                                    Continuing to say how well we have managed things relative to other countries is now coming across as a little self-indulgent and means very little to those who cannot be at a dying loved ones bedside or to a company that can no longer afford to pay its staff. 

                                                    Having a one in one hundred year event means nothing to anyone other than those who are doing the ‘modelling’, and that is of no benefit if their models showed stocks of face masks that in the end were of no use because the elastic bands had perished.

                                                    Can we not now start to have a new face at the podium each day at 1:00pm?      A face that talks on behalf of the aspirations of citizens and business, and can introduce us to a new lexicon involving hope, recovery, and growth; and helps to lead us positively into winter 2020, not a winter of discontent.

                                                     

                                                    April 2020

                                                    Early lockdown.
                                                    We are in the early days of the unknown.  We have never been here before, and we have no idea what tomorrow will be like.
                                                    The Government is talking about rescue packages – I hope they do not turn out to be lolly scrambles; if they do I fear small businesses will be the loser.

                                                    What about the recruitment market?    Early days on this but in the words of the Sam Cooke song – ‘a change is gonna come’.

                                                     

                                                    January 2020

                                                    It seems to me that I am hearing more apologies than usual.
                                                    Almost every TV news programme contains an item where a rabid journalist thrusts a microphone into someone’s face demanding humiliation, or even better a falling on their sword.
                                                    The theatre of it may once have been a bit dramatic, but now it has become boring, frequent, and melodramatic.

                                                    What got me thinking is how did the person responsible for the screw up actually get into their job in the first place?
                                                    We keep being told about robust and transparent processes and decisions; but all I am hearing is obfuscation – art of talking without saying anything intelligible.

                                                     

                                                    august 2019

                                                    Well here we go again?
                                                    The little man in my tummy is telling me the recruitment market has a similar feel to that just before the Global Financial Crisis.
                                                    No way am I saying that we are due for a second GFC, just that the market feels similar.

                                                    We have a shopping list of reasons why business sentiment is at a low ebb: slowing world growth, low interest rates, very little inflation, a slow-down in China, Brexit, Trump, trade protectionism and political populism.
                                                    But, on the upside New Zealand is still experiencing strong growth compared to the rest of the world and we still produce products the world wants; including meat, however, it is going to be a few years yet before the family roast beef dinner is artificial and squirted out of a tube.

                                                    For recruitment it is hard for organisations to find ‘the right person’ with the general lack of readily available good candidates, but with ‘the right recruitment consultant’ their chances are improved.

                                                     

                                                    july 2019

                                                    The holding pattern continues.
                                                    Low interest rates and expensive petrol, low unemployment and a general lack of availability of quality candidates, sunny days and fires, incessant traffic jams and the incessant chatter from the PC brigade, the growing gap between the haves’ and the have nots’ and endless Government committee reviews.
                                                    I need a drink!