Will You Miss The Boat?
It is still too early to say whether we have reached the trough of the current recession. The rate of layoffs seems to have slowed (despite RBS' recent efforts), the G20 have committed USD1.3trillion to re-boot the world economy, and there seems to be less bad news on the property front.We can't expect industry to re-hire everyone who has been laid off immediately. My view is that now is the time for companies to start thinking (see my posting What Next? on 16 March) about their talent pool. Many will have pared staff down to the bare minimum to survive, but need to think about the future now. Some have offered reduced working weeks (on lower pay) or sabbaticals to staff, rather than incur the cost of firing and then re-hiring. These are the sensible ones.
The ones who risk oblivion are those who currently turn away people enquiring about opportunities, saying that there is a "hiring freeze" in place. By turning people away, these companies are putting themselves in a position where they will be at a fundamental hiring and cost disadvantage when the economy or their businesses turn.
When things do move again, the reaction of organisations will be to hire. Those who have continued to talk to candidates (and they are out here - I know) will have a pipeline of CVs and contact details, with the potential to proceed immediately to second-round interviews and hire at reasonable salaries. The others will be delaying their recovery and giving an advantage to competitors by playing catch-up in a market where demand for candidates is increasing and where they may have to pay more to attract good applicants.
It is early days yet, but you know what they say about the bird...
posted by William Martin @ 03:03
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