Why we should be embracing GDPR

GDPR. That dreaded abbreviation that’s popping up on every other status on your LI feed – sorry for another!

It’s probably one of the biggest changes for 2018, yet so many people are putting it off. I for one, have spent the past few months dreading the introduction of GDPR, procrastinating around the topic. Convincing myself that reading endless articles and papers on the subject would help with my preparation. But I wasn’t learning anything, every article just described what GDPR is (General Data Protection Regulation, for those who have been lucky enough to avoid the high levels of stress surrounding it).

One thing I came to find, is that no matter how much I read about it, not one article actually tells you how to deal with it. Not one offered advice on how to prepare for it, or what it actually means for day-to-day business activity – and I honestly think this is because no one really knows. Everyone, despite people admitting it, are scared. And in some ways, I agree, it’s a huge change the industry, one that no doubt will affect many!

May 25th will be here before we know it – it only seems like yesterday that it was announced and I remember thinking ‘oh that’s months away, that is a job for another day’. But here we are – less than four months to go.

For candidates and clients, GDPR is great – finally a regulation you should be looking forward to! No more endless spamming emails from pesky annoying recruiters, that clearly haven’t read your profile, or understand what your company offers. And because of this, I’m now excited by GDPR.

It’s no longer going to be a numbers game, it’s not going to be about the number of candidate CV’s we hold, or the number of prospect clients we’ve got on our CRM to contact each week – it’s going to be about relationships, and nurturing relationships – and earning the right to hold their information to help us continue building such relationships.

When you think about it, this is what recruitment should have been for all these years, going back to how it used to be, before KPI’s and strict sales targets. People are at the core of recruitment. That’s why I love it. Take away the commission structures, people should be motivated by building relationships with candidates, so they feel the same feeling of accomplishment as the candidate when they deliver the offer letter, or share the same feeling of gratitude as the client when they finally find that “perfect” candidate.

It shouldn’t be taking the introduction of heavy fines to encourage people to focus on what really matters – our relationships are core to what we do, even if we’re not placing a candidate, we still want to nurture that relationship, and offer advice wherever possible – because it’s those relationships that will help businesses grow in the long term, and it’s those relationships that make your work all worthwhile – so if I can offer one bit of advice of what to expect with the upcoming changes – it’s to embrace it.