Using Labour Market Seasonality and Employer Engagement to increase your performance

Maybe you, like me, are still reeling that we are already in the second half of 2024!? As we approach a quieter time in the labour market over the summer months it’s worth thinking about how to best use this time in employability, skills, and related programmes. The quieter summer period is usually followed by one of the busiest times in the recruitment calendar - the “September Surge’ – when vacancies in many industries spike upwards. For employability and skills programmes, a quieter summer followed by the Autumn recruitment spike presents an opportunity to prepare teams and participants for maximum performance.

From my experience, having worked with scores of providers over the last 20 years, here is what the successful providers do to improve their performance through Summer and Autumn, summarised in three top tips. ?

Review Your Current Employer Relationships

Reach out to your current employer partners to discuss their Summer/Autumn/Winter hiring needs, and how you can support them in developing their talent pipeline. ? Learn from the past. Identify and approach businesses within industries that tend to experience the September Surge, such as retailers gearing up for their Autumn/Winter requirements. Other industries also experience this surge so use your data to your advantage. ? It might be obvious, but businesses need help finding future talent – it’s not always effective to only reach out when they have a live vacancy. Working closely with businesses to plan future recruitment is proven to build stronger relationships for the long term. ?

Prepare your Participants

Whilst July and August can be quieter for vacancy activity it presents an opportunity to upskill and prepare your participant pool through well designed training routeways. Participants will benefit from knowing that there are likely to be more opportunities in the Autumn so setting a date to be employed by, with a supporting plan to get there, is a valuable activity. ? ?

Ensure your Staff have the skills and confidence to effectively engage businesses

Frontline staff, be they coaches or specialist employer engagement teams, perform better if they are well trained and have the tools and confidence to make every employer interaction count. ??Realistically, some staff will not have the confidence to have the consultative conversation with businesses, so I’d encourage you to think about supporting your teams to be the best they can be. ? Increased confidence through enhanced employer engagement skills will yield more vacancies; better vacancy conversion, increased repeat business, and strengthened employer relationships. ? ?

Conclusion ?

The September Surge represents an opportunity for more of our participants to secure employment. To plan in advance not only makes sense but ensures both quality and quantity of opportunities. ? I am personally working with many organisations who have chosen to enhance their strategy and improve the skills of their people. If you’d like to discuss this for your organisation, then do get in touch on [email protected]. ?