We need the right candidate for the job.

I have lost count of how many businesses I have been into that tell me just that but how often does that happen? Well in my opinion, very rarely; so, what goes wrong?

Quite often I come into businesses to assess the IT department as a whole and suggest improvements within that team, it could be skillset improvements or process improvements or even organisational structure improvements, which when highlighted are all usually met with enthusiasm and a want to change.

However, when it comes down to hiring and getting the “right candidate for the job” nine times out of ten this is where the stumbling blocks start to appear. In recent years IT salaries across the board have increased at a phenomenal rate, putting some of the talent out of the reach of some businesses. This is especially apparent in the cyber space and senior leadership roles; businesses are often using “benchmarked” salaries that are completely out of date and out of touch with the market. Leaving them unable to find the talent they require or amalgamating several jobs into a single role which requires a huge skillset that very few people possess.

Moving out into a post COVID world people are demanding a better home/work life balance, with more roles out there now promoting 1-2 days a month in the office. Whilst some businesses are reluctant to go down this road and want staff in 3 days a week, I personally think it’s very short sighted. In my last role I worked fully remote going into the office only when required for collaborative meetings. I found even being remote it was very easy to build trust within my team through regular team meetings and it allowed me to have a larger hiring pool for talent when I needed to fill the roles, as I could look anywhere within the UK.

Even though I was bound by lower than average salaries for the roles, the fact that I could offer a fully supported team environment but also keep everyone remote for a better home/work life balance allowed me to attract some amazing talent for the business and speaking on a personal level, as a single dad of an 8 year old boy being able to be fully remote helped my home/work life balance greatly; far more than a salary increase would have.

Over the last few years, the world of work has changed dramatically, more people want the flexibility to work from home with options to come into the office when required rather than mandated. Whilst I have read a lot about businesses worrying that remote staff wont work as a team or engage correctly, I can honestly say if correctly managed this just isn’t the case. I found my staff felt more empowered, trusted, engaged and were happier with the company culture. ?

All the flexibility I was able to provide my staff in my previous role allowed me to increase productivity, increase staff engagement, increase staff loyalty to the business and provided my staff with a home/work life balance which worked for them all on an individual basis, this in turn helped to attract good quality talent to the roles without having to dramatically increase salaries.

If your business is still on the fence around genuine remote/hybrid working, I would strongly recommend implementing a more flexible approach; managed correctly it could make a huge difference to productivity, staff engagement and being able to attract good talent from throughout the UK/EU or beyond.?