COVID-19 Friday 1st May 2020

So, the end of another week and the start of another month. I think for CSC it has been 7 weeks since we left the office, and 5 weeks since ‘Lockdown’. This in itself says something to me!

This has been a week of recriminations…the blame game is in full swing and there is no doubt that ‘we’ could have done things better. We were late to lock down in the UK and we weren’t prepared.

Tonight, I think there is going to be some ‘back slapping’ that by the skin of their teeth the government hit a 100,000 per day test target. Any sane person however knows they could have done this weeks ago with a modicum of preparation whereas time was wasted, incorrect tests were purchased and many mistakes were made.

Also, there is the rather strange line being peddled that the government have succeeded in ‘protecting the NHS’ which is a strange thing to say when many members of staff have died while working to treat patients and front-line staff in some cases still do not have the correct PPE…my sister is a front-line ITU nurse and she has been washing her ‘single use’ face shield so I know this first hand.

Furthermore, we are now being told that we may have to wear face-masks to return to work. Nice if you can get some. We have a small supply bought weeks ago but not sufficient if I was to go to work every day and my wife was doing the school run. It is still difficult to get hand gel so I dread to think how difficult it would be to get a mask if that is a requirement.

Many people don’t like the idea of the government being challenged at the moment ‘they should be left to get on with their job and we can look at this afterwards’ is one argument. I strongly disagree with this. I studied Classics at University and much of my Ancient Greek centered around Athens and the birth of democracy. It is not only our right to challenge the government, it is our responsibility to do so…that was a key lesson from those days.

I would love to see some acknowledgement at the very least that errors have been made rather than the current press briefings where everyone is trying to sound like the best possible job has been done throughout…but maybe that is just me?

As for work, the construction industry is trying to restart slowly. More and more contractors and developers are reopening sites and for us that can only be welcome news. Again, there is a lot of talk about the ‘new normal’ what will a site look like and for how long with the social distancing implication, but I guess there has to be a starting point.

And going forward there is still positive messages coming out from clients about work wins. The one thing I do know, there is still a chronic talent shortage in our industry and that hasn’t changed overnight so there will still be needs to be met.

I have two very simple messages to all our clients and candidates:

To clients I say…we are here and can help. Whether it is temporary, permanent or temp to perm. Nothing has impacted our ability to find you the best people and do what we have been doing for 15 years.

To candidates I say…talk to us. Even if we can’t help you tomorrow (as there will more than likely be less need for people straight away), we can still help, get you ‘job ready’ with an up to date CV, some market advice and interview coaching, and when that time comes, help you get a new role.

I look forward to lots of this very soon.