That's The Spirit

Hello,

Taking the plunge and publishing last month’s Executive Brief reminded me: “The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”

Sharing my thoughts and conversations on Linkedin felt uncomfortable – for a few minutes. Now, I wonder what stopped me for so long. ??

If you find yourself continually rolling forward an action that is easier to avoid than undertake, let me encourage you to bite the bullet, focus, and get it done – you’ll be glad you did.

Let’s dive into #2.

Market Update

I’ve worked in recruitment for more than 25 years and thought I’d seen it all, but the last few months have thrown unexpected curveballs contrary to the pre-election speculation. Employer trepidation to hire has not materialised and clients continue to prioritise permanent over temporary assignments, which has been the pattern for almost two years.

Not the norm across the summer months I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the healthy volume of senior executive and director-level recruitment, which I also consider a sign of business confidence and growth. Reflecting the unpredictable, rapidly changing hiring market, more clients have realised the importance of total reward benchmarking – not necessarily because they plan to hire, but because they wish to have an appreciation for how their pay and benefits stack up compared to peer competitors, listed companies, and PE-backed organisations.?

Women in New Energy

Later this month I’ll be participating at the Women in New Energy (WiNE) conference. There’s incredible demand for quality networking, learning, and collaboration – the event sold out in under 48 hours.

Expert discussions range from digitalisation, geothermal energy, neurodiversity, branding, workforce development, and managing change. I’m facilitating the discussion topic "How to get a seat at the boardroom table" and look forward to hearing personal experiences and thoughts.

Over the last decade, great strides have been taken regarding the number of women in board positions. The FTSE Women Leader’s Review reported a record high for FTSE 350 companies of 42.1% women’s representation.

Good progress, but still a way to go. The same report cites a flat line of progress in the UK’s Top 50 private companies where women’s board representation is around 31%. From personal experience, I know it’s lower than that locally.

For as long as under-representation remains stubbornly prevalent greater intervention from government and business is required. However, women must understand how they can take action to realise their board aspirations too. We'll talk about this at the WiNE roundtable and I've included thoughts on this topic in the September edition of Energy Voice .

WiNE takes place on 26th September and I’ll share the interesting findings from my roundtable and the plenary session in next month's Executive Brief.

Get More From Your Executive Search

Reflecting on my conversations with hiring clients over the summer, 3 recurring themes are relevant to the WiNE event. We continually challenge clients on these and that can lead to different hiring outcomes for those willing to look at their recruitment differently. Consider how relevant they are to your hiring challenges:

Campaign Spotlight

Looking at things differently is exactly what The Cabrach Trust did when appointing a new Finance Director, as explained by the Chief Executive in last month’s campaign spotlight – here it is again if you missed it.

In this Campaign Spotlight, I'm featuring the finance guy himself - Finance Director Craig Buchan . Twelve months into the job, Craig is refreshingly honest about the daunting learning gradient - despite his expansive years of experience.

I enjoyed how he describes himself as an interpreter, what that means for bringing a better understanding of financial consequences to operational teams, and how his remit extends beyond finance - even assisting in the recipe for The Cabrach Distillery Feering Early Harvest.

If you are curious to know my role in this executive search assignment, Craig comments on that too:

I think Amanda took the time to understand who I was and what I wanted from my next role and astutely appreciated the commonality between what The Cabrach Trust wanted and the personalities within the Trust and how our needs and approaches were matched.

Our conversation is jam-packed with interesting nuggets about working in finance, relocation, following your passion, and life-long learning, I encourage you to read it at TMM Executive - That's The Spirit.

Until next time, Amanda

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