HAYS IRELAND BLOG

THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD OF WORK

Friday 25 May 2012

Finally, a solution to the economic crisis!

Is it me or are people much happier and more positive this week in comparison to last week?

While out for a stroll at lunchtime today I couldn’t help but notice that most of the people I passed were either smiling or at the very least presenting a far more cheery disposition than that of the previous week. There was also more of an air of positivity around - people’s strides were more purposeful… more of a spring in their step.

And this glow wasn’t just confined to people in the street, shop assistants also appeared to be more friendly and helpful. Even the lady who prepared my sandwich greeted me differently – “How are you today sir? What can I get you?”  instead of the usual snap “What can I get ya?!?”

So what has changed from last week? Let me see…..

Has our national debt been wiped out? Have we miraculously found another 400,000 jobs returning us back to full employment? Nope.  It’s simply the case of the sun coming out!

This got me thinking....what power this natural force has over the Irish people’s psyche. If some nice weather can make such a positive difference in peoples attitudes, why haven’t we been taking advantage of this when its comes to Government strategy? It’s worth a shot!!! Wouldn’t we stand a far greater chance of negotiating a better Croke Park deal if we held emergency meetings this week rather than on a dark, dreary wet week in November? ( I am sure some of those people I passed at lunchtime were members of our union movement!).

Imagine what could be achieved if we brought the Troika and representatives of the ECB over here this week? They say there is no better place than Ireland when the sun is out. Let them get a feel for the real Irish 'cead mile failte' in overdrive. I’d say we would cut a far better deal.

But let’s not stop there. Imagine if the Island of Ireland was located on the west coast of America? We probably would have never have gotten into this bloody economic mess in the first place!

Am I placing too much trust on the affect of the sun on Ireland OR could this be the way forward?


Eamonn Wren
Finance Director
Ireland

HAYS Recruiting experts worldwide
Dublin

T: +353 1 619 0528
E: eamonn.wren@hays.com


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Tuesday 22 May 2012

Does your company need a pool table to be a “great place to work” ?

hays, great place to work
6 seasoned, recruitment professional from Hays attended the annual Great Place To Work Conference (GPTW) in the Aviva Stadium earlier this year.  As recruiters we have a lot of experience of helping people find the right job and as part of the consultancy process we get some insight into the many reasons why a person might choose to work in one place over another.  So we were pretty interested to compare notes with some of the companies that would be presenting at the conference and who repeatedly appear on the GPTW list.  We wanted to find out more of what this whole movement is about. 

The conference is run by the GPTW institute, who each year, publish a list of top companies to work for in Ireland.  So how do they decide who gets in?  Well through completion of a staff sentiment survey along with a cultural audit a company will see how they are benchmarked against other similar organisations.  The index shows how you are scoring in a number of key areas that indicate if you are in fact a great place to work or not.  A nice definition that the institute has to describe a GPTW is that it is one where “You trust those you work for, that you have pride in what you do and enjoy your colleagues”  

There has definitely been a movement toward a more caring employment culture in Ireland in recent years. Many US multinationals take part in the US GPTW programme and have extended this to their international partners.  Anecdotally we have heard stories of how some companies are doing interesting things such as providing employees with on site games rooms, gyms and free food.  Now I like the sound of the free food and am partial to a good game of pool but does having a pool table make a company a great place to work?  What will happen in the future if there is less money for these types of perks, are there other things happening in these companies that are more fundamental to being a GPTW? 

As recruitment consultants we may be in a good position to sense check what’s happening with our candidates.  At Hays Ireland we meet thousands of professionals for interview each year and are in a position to offer some insight into what motivates a person to choose working for one company over another. At interview we’re careful to build a profile of the job and company that will be best fit for the individual; some people call it their wish list.  We discuss things like the salary and the benefits that they’re hoping to attract the desired location, the job description, the industry type and development opportunities - basically what is their ideal job.  But there are other reasons why candidates might choose one company over another, for example the organisations profile and its brand can be a big factor in the decision, the Big Four are always popular choices for up and coming accountants.  However there is another element that we have always been aware of but which is becoming more and more important to our candidates and that’s the perception they have of the organisations culture – what good stuff have they heard about this company on the grapevine.

Candidates want to know “is this a great place to work?” they may not be explicitly identifying this as their primary motivator in finding a job but it is evident that candidates are aligning themselves with the values of organisations that best match their own.  It turns out that for many of us we are quite similar when it comes to the type of place we want to work for, this tends to be companies that care for and respect their employees and who embrace their potential.

So the thing about these great places to work is that they often end up with some of the best and most motivated employees, very engaged teams and statistically proven better bottom line results, some of the benefits advertised by the GPTW institute are that “the best companies to work for perform 3x better than the general market and have 50% lower turnover” You’d nearly say a company would be foolish not to embrace this opportunity to maximise it’s opportunities and potential.  There are clearly some very convincing reasons why other organisations might try to emulate what’s happening in these great companies and the six of us were interested to hear their recipe for success.

For Hays we had another more important reason to be there.  This is our own first year participating in the GPTW competition and we wanted a broad range of employees from our organisation to experience what this journey might have to offer.  We can see that there’s a lot that we can learn and also contribute from being part of this great community.  Already we’ve identified some really great things about Hays Ireland from the feedback, one of the best being that people at Hays have is a feeling of pride in what they do and strong sense of camaraderie with each other - this is fantastic.  We have some of the most amazing people working for our business who are passionate about people, every day working to find their candidates jobs that could transform their lives.

I have to say there was a great line-up at the event and you’d expect no less.  We saw leaders from businesses including Microsoft, Topaz, Boots, Vision1, EMC2 and Diageo.  There was a strong practical feel to the day – we heard about simple things and more challenging endeavours that have made a difference to the people of these organisations.  One of my key take-aways from Bob Lee of the GPTW Institute was “It’s not what you do it’s WHY you do it”.  There is definitely no quick fix to becoming a GPTW and you can’t just copy what another organisation has done to replicate an outcome but you can take some inspiration from others success and adapt it to fit with your organisation.  Some of the other things that stood out to us were ideas around:  Peer to peer recognition programmes, fostering a “Thanking Culture”, more flexible and innovative working arrangements to reflect our changing world and engaging employees in the Values of our business.  It was also fantastic to hear about many inspiring CSR initiatives. 

For the Hays contingent we really enjoyed the day- it was a great success, we got to meet a lot of great people and took inspiration from the great stuff that’s happening out there.  Other highlights included frequent treats such as a mid afternoon tub of Haagen Dazs and a tour of the Aviva including the inside scoop on stories from the changing rooms.  But for me one of the best bits was really getting to see this great community in action, the generosity that you get from the participating companies can not be overstated.  I’ve had personal offers of assistance to help us get started in our journey, we’ve been invited to visit organisation to experience what they are doing and have had CEOS personally take the time to share their stories with us. This I believe is the real spirit of a GPTW, goodwill that is extended even beyond the walls of your own company. 

GPTW have invited us to the "Learn from the Black Belts of Great Place to Workism" session taking place on Thursday 24th May.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us to hear how Microsoft have achieved their success after being crowned as #1 Best Workplace in the World in 2011.   It's not only about their successes, but their failures, wrong turns and the challenges they faced.   Looking forward to finding out more!

Michelle Waters
HR Manager
Hays recruiting experts worldwide
T: +353 1 877 2481
E: michelle.waters@hays.com
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Friday 11 May 2012

The Mid West – The Basket Case of Ireland

If Ireland was recently considered the economic basket case of Europe, (although we hope perceptions may be beginning to change), is it a case that the Mid-West is the basket case of Ireland?  As a proud Limerick man having grown up, received an education and spent the past 12 years working locally, it pains me considerably when I read negative press about this region.  Negative press however tends to focus on the ‘image’ of the city, on the McCarthy Dundons et-al and although damaging from a tourism point of view and even potentially from an investment point of view, I’m pretty confident that this has little to do with the woes of the region.

The mid-west has been let down at the highest possible level for a considerable period of time and the finger of blame lies squarely at the foot of successive Governments.  Not much point I hear you say in laying blame, but if we are to move forward we must identify the issues and assign responsibility to those who are in a position to make some real changes.

The Mid-West is generally defined as Limerick and surrounding counties; it refers to the city and county of Limerick, Shannon up as far as Ennis, North Tipperary and parts of Kerry as far as Tralee.  The Celtic Tiger brought one lasting benefit to the region as it did to most of Ireland - it provided us with a road infrastructure that, while not perfect, is much advanced from 20 years ago.  The downside of course to the improved road structure is that it has gotten a lot easier for people to work and study away from Limerick; and sadly that’s what’s happening.

Back to the responsibility bit, - Shannon Airport.  For many years the Government forced Trans Atlantic traffic to utilise Shannon, which seems to have artificially supported a relatively successful airport. However, once that crutch was removed the airport has gone into freefall.  Having been there on two occasions recently to fly to London, I was horrified at the departures lounge! Is it closed today I asked myself, where is everybody else? Where is Ryanair?  God knows O’Leary flies us into some obscure airport destinations around Europe in the guise of flying to Paris, Amsterdam etc. surely given our aforementioned location and road network Shannon offers a better prospect to passengers than Faranfore in Kerry which is currently the ‘regions’ airport of choice for Ryanair?

Minister for Transport; Leo Varadkar has just announced plans to separate Shannon Airport from the Dublin Airport Authority and bring it together with Shannon Development in a single entityWhile this has to be seen as good news, particularity given the fact that its current debts of €100m will remain with the DAA, it is equally somewhat disconcerting when one reads the line in the press release;

There is still a lot of detail to be worked out around the new structure and operation of the new entity, but today's announcement is undoubtedly a major step towards creating a new entity which will act as a catalyst for growth for the wider region in the years to come".

Worryingly there appears to be a trend with this particular Government around making announcements and then 'figuring out the detail' afterwards and we need only remind ourselves of many such topical issues recently which simply, have been chaotic at implementation.  However the approach appears correct so lets firstly get Ryanair back in (give it to them if we have to) but lets get footfall into Shannon. The benefits for the region for business and tourism go without stating.

We are all well aware of the committee put in place by the previous Government and chaired by Denis Brosnan of Kerry Group, fame, the committee who continues to work on the implementation of a much needed strategy to combine Limerick City and County Councils.  Their work is ongoing and thankfully the decision to combine both councils is now irreversible with much of the implementation already started.  I was pleased to attend a recent IBEC conference and to hear at first hand much of the work that is already done.  It’s an enormous task, but if done correctly, will be the blueprint for many similar amalgamations throughout the country.  You really would have to be from Limerick to realise how crazy the current structure is with the HQ of the county council in the same car park of one the largest shopping centre complexes in Munster but due to boundaries drawn up many many years ago, the area is in the County. And a short trip across town, one finds the proud offices of the city council with their very own dedicated resources replicating their country cousins!

Regeneration continues at pace - many of us wonder what its doing! The cry from the regen people is that it’s not all about helping the disadvantaged communities of inner city Limerick. Yes that’s a big part but equally its about revitalising the city, getting footfall back into town, reenergising the streets.  The problem with this is the noises are right but there is little to be seen on the ground.  Regeneration appears to be having mixed success within the disadvantaged communities and where the investment is going to come in terms of rejuvenating the city remains a mystery to me and many others.  The philanthropic prowess of JP McManus, Chuck Feeney & Co. while always an ace in the pack for the region, is of little benefit without a clear plan, and without clear direction.  Until someone takes hold of where all this is going then I cannot see where ongoing meaningful funding can come from.

Industry is of course our biggest issue in the region, its not all bad news here thankfully but our challenges are linked to much of the above.  We have, over the years managed to grow and develop successful indigenous and multinational companies, many of which seem to stem from the progressive move of the Sean Lemass era when the Shannon Free Zone was created, leading to a culture of American multinational companies setting up in the region.  While many of those companies from the late 60’s / early 70’s have long since departed, it’s interesting to see that amongst our flagship companies today such as GE, Analog, Stryker, Dell, Genworth and others, close examination will trace their roots directly back to this period.  Its shocking however that a Fianna Fail led Government for 13 years with cabinet representation from Limerick failed to substantially move the region forward economically and to replicate in any way what was achieved in our two rival regions of Galway and Cork.  Cork the Pharma capital (not to mention the rest) and of course Galway the Med Device capital…..what has the Mid-West? A spatter of manufacturing, some med device, some ICT, some aircraft leasing, some Financial Services. All brilliant in themselves and all very welcome but lacking in something to ‘hang our hat on’ as a region.  I sat at a breakfast meeting in the city recently and listened to Minister Michael Noonan address this very issue, he highlighted much of what I have said above and told us that his office rang Barry O’Learys’ office (CEO IDA) every 2 weeks and asked “is there anything for Limerick? That’s the Minister for Finance’s answer, not because he himself is a Limerick man, I respect he has a duty to the entire nation, but how can the Government policy for the mid-west be, ring the IDA every fortnight to ask them “if there is anything for Limerick”?

At the same briefing the Minister talked about the Governments policy to build a sound economy for the future, investing in education and developing the knowledge economy. Where have we heard that before? Yet every third level institution in the country continue to beg the Government for funding; that they cannot possibly deliver what is required with a decreasing investment year on year, coupled with an even heavier burden being placed on students as government assistance to study from undergrad right up to PhD all suffer the consequence of cuts? Luckily for the region we have an established University, two outstanding Institutes of Technology, a teacher training college that is renowned nationally and internationally as well as a number of other third level institutions that all provide a wonderful service. However, it’s equally concerning to hear of the challenges that each of these face, particularly around funding.  In an ever-increasing competitive international market it’s more than concerning how far down the rankings Irish universities are in general.

The mid-west has what appear to be amongst some of Ireland greatest challenges as a region, some things are being tackled but the degree of rhetoric versus actual action coming from Government and their appointed agencies is very worrying.  Lots of announcements, lots of noise, lots of figuring out the detail later! Its time to have joined up thinking before the entire region gets left behind.   

Someone need to take responsibility, we need a Minister for the Mid-West.

Bobby O'Connor Business Director
HAYS Recruiting experts worldwide

T: +353 61 435 750
E: bobby.oconnor@hays.com 
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