How much time, energy and expense is it taking your company to find the best people for your tech teams? I hear repeatedly from CTOs that filtering and interviewing large numbers of people for high volume tech roles is draining too much time, while getting any suitable applicants for roles requiring emerging skill sets is difficult – e.g. Data Scientists, Cyber Security Analysts or Polyglot Engineers.

The Unique Challenge of Emerging Skill Roles

In recent years, advancements in technology have, to some extent democratised the recruitment process. Thanks to the ease of LinkedIn, for example, and use of X-Ray / Boolean search methods, many companies now make use of their own in-house Talent Acquisition (TA) teams to fill roles. Working on multiple roles simultaneously is a labour-intensive process at the best of times, and when it comes to roles requiring people with emerging skill sets, it’s much tougher.

If a role requires an emerging skill set, there are naturally fewer potential people out there. As a result, these people will be more selective about where they want to work and are highly likely not to be actively looking for jobs. Having a strong network in this area and headhunting is more effective than advertising and managing an in-flow of candidates would be.

The Rise of the Polyglot Engineer

The shift in requirements for software engineers is a great example of how quickly skills change from emerging to mainstream and – in some cases – back again.

About 10 years ago, software engineer roles tended to be more generalist, working with multiple development languages. This evolved into companies looking for software engineers with one language specialism – Java / Python developers etc. This is now going full cycle and the future of software engineering is ‘polyglot’ engineers, which means individuals with experience with several platforms and programming languages. The next generation, currently training at University, are being taught to develop in multiple languages and not being told to specialise. Having polyglots allows companies to build teams that are leaner, more efficient, and better able to evolve as new technologies emerge.

A Collaborative Approach Between In-House Teams and Agency

The challenge of finding people for mainstream roles vs emerging skill sets often leads companies towards one of three approaches, each with pros and cons.

• Solution one: all roles are the responsibility of in-house talent acquisition teams.

This is extremely time consuming and, naturally, creates a tendency towards filling the mainstream roles first as they are quicker to complete.

• Solution two: have a large roster of specialist recruitment agencies for emerging skill set roles.

This approach brings the benefit of the agencies’ expertise in niche areas but also means multiple terms, contact points and repeating requirements.

• Solution three: hire external consultancies to do the specialist work required.

Management consultancies actively hire polyglot engineers, for example, knowing there will be a demand in the market. While this ensures the expertise, it comes at a high cost.

At Arrows Group, we have evolved our proposition with just this conundrum in mind to offer an alternative solution. Our approach is to work collaboratively with company TA teams. Historically, TA teams have been viewed as rivals to the traditional role of the recruiter, but we consider this to be an outdated and unhelpful way of thinking.

Through a two-pronged approach, we aim to add tangible value for TA teams. When it comes to mainstream, volume roles we help support and streamline the process, quite literally sitting next to teams on-site. We help manage the interview process, deal with stakeholders and help increase the ratio of job offer to acceptance.

Alongside this, our tech recruitment consultants have moved their skill sets towards niche roles. Our specialists within Arrows Group invest time in building networks, in particular working with universities and targeting Generation Z as they come into the workforce.

Adapting Approach and Expectations

Through a blended, collaborative approach to recruitment we have helped encourage our clients to hire people where their potential to learn multiple skills is key rather than out and out specialism, creating improvements in acceptance ratios and retention.

The most important element in approaching this challenge is looking at the interview process and making sure a different approach is used for the different type of skills – one that will resonate with the individuals. We’ve adapted our technical tests to be a lot more collaborative and engaging where needed, for example by using team-based testing with a social element incorporated into the interview for polyglot engineers. We use video interviewing and other mediums that are preferred by our target candidates.

We recognise key skill sets are constantly changing, particularly in the tech sector. It’s critical, then, that we don’t insist on using traditional methodologies to attract individuals with cutting edge abilities.

Are you looking to hire individuals with emerging skills, such as polyglot engineers? Or, would you like to streamline your process with volume roles? Why not challenge us and see if we can help? Contact Charlie.sell@arrowsgroup.co.uk, call 0207 803 1700 or visit www.arrowsgroup.com.

 

Please have a look at our latest paper regarding remote work & onboarding. We are very keen in sharing this information with you and happy to hear your thoughts.

Introduction;
For the creation of this guide, Arrows Group Global spoke to around 100 of our UK clients about their remote onboarding and interviewing challenges. These include leading UK businesses such as Just Eat, Sky, Moonpig, JustGiving, Sony, Revolute and Virgin Media. This has been combined with best practice advice from Arrows Group Global, a leading technology recruitment business with offices in London and Amsterdam – and currently staff working remotely across both countries

Please continue reading here → AGG – White Paper – Remote work & onboarding

 

 

Answer honestly. In normal business circumstances, how good are you at keeping in contact with your customers? Not just those you are actively doing business with, or in discussion with? How about those you haven’t done business with for a while, or you’ve put in the capable hands of an Account Manager because all is running smoothly?

How often do you call just to make contact and see how their business is going?

The Simple Lesson: Don’t Be a Stranger

 The reason I pose the question? I’ve learned an important lesson since working in lockdown. As I wrote in a previous article, in these unique times businesses need to evolve and not try and continue as usual if that’s no longer relevant. That means it’s more vital than ever that we listen to our clients and find out what new challenges they’re facing.

Understanding current challenges naturally mean spending a large quantity of time having frank and open discussions. As you know yourself, the person you want to talk openly to is usually the one you already have a good relationship with.

Over time, as my position has become more senior, my role and use of time have changed considerably, as it does for most. As Managing Director, pre-lockdown, the majority of my time was spent in all manner of internal meetings, combined with a number of hours traveling. I usually had contact with our clients at an advanced stage in the process, typically to check on the quality of service they were receiving from our fantastic consultants, and to see where we could expand on the relationship. I didn’t have time and often didn’t feel it was my place to routinely just check in with people to see how their business was going.

The result is, to be completely truthful, I had let contact slip with some clients I’d had great relationships with as a consultant. This was also partly a consequence of spending several years in The Netherlands.

What has this meant? Well, in all the excellent and meaningful conversations with clients present and past I’ve had over the last few weeks, I’ve felt humbled by realising there were gaps in the relationship – things I didn’t know had happened in their lives; them not having heard from me since my second child was born. The important moments that mean more to a relationship than business updates or job vacancies. It’s been an unexpected pleasure of lockdown, catching up on all this and reconnecting. In lockdown, they’ve been more available to talk too.

“No matter how diverse your role becomes, you need to keep your clients at the heart of everything you do.”

Clients First, Operations Second

 This experience has brought home one simple, obvious truth. No matter how diverse your role becomes, you need to keep your clients at the heart of everything you do. It’s reminded me that I must, no matter how much our business grows, devote a portion of every day to listening to our clients. And finally, that businesses have to be client, not operations led, to remain relevant and successful.

What have been some of your most valuable business lessons since being in lockdown? I’d love to hear. Share your thoughts in the comments below and contact me on charlie.sell@arrowsgroup.com  

There is little that is more insensitive and pointless in business than trying to keep operating ‘as usual’ if that usual now makes no sense.

At Arrows Group, our ‘usual’ offering is the full gamut of workforce solutions; defining recruitment strategies, pure recruitment, onboarding, retention etc. The events of recent weeks, while not putting a total stop to all of these, have caused fundamental changes that make it imperative for us to evolve to remain relevant.

Establishing New Areas of Need

The good news for us, as we work primarily in the technology sector, is that there is still some need for recruitment during lockdown. According to recent analysis from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies, some 35% of current vacancies in London on job boards are within the IT sector. On a normal, average week this figure would usually be 15% or less.

This aside, the number one rule in sales (or any business, really) is always to listen to and understand your clients’ needs. Over the last few weeks, I have had many lengthy discussions with ours about their current business challenges. From these and other conversations, Arrows Group has established our clients’ most critical areas of need right now. Some examples of these are:

• Guidance on accessing new government grants and business loans
• Guidance on onboarding new employees remotely
• Guidance on retention / motivation strategies for current teams

Turning Needs into Services

Having identified new areas of need where we have the expertise to support, we have ‘productised’ many of them as new service offerings from Arrows Group. For our active clients, these are being offered for free to best support them in these extraordinary times.

We are utilising the existing skills within our business for our evolved product services. On the question of support with government grants, for example, Arrows Group was one of the first businesses to go through the process and be accepted for a loan under the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) – although we have not yet needed to draw on it. On 15th April, UK Finance reported that just 21% of almost 30,000 formal CBILS applications had been approved. Having been through that process, as well as having a CFO with a background in corporate restructure, we can apply our recent knowledge and expertise to our new client service.

As we all try and set our course through unchartered waters, another request we are frequently getting is for quality market insights. Our clients are willing and keen to openly discuss current challenges with like-minded people from different companies. To facilitate this, Arrows Group is hosting a series of video forums. At time of writing, this series is expected to include forums for Chief of Staff, Financial Directors, CTOs, Procurement, Engineering Managers and HR professionals. The format will range from smaller breakfast meetings to conferences with a keynote speaker and set content depending on size of audience.

Ongoing Evolution 

We have evolved our business offering already, but we also know many of the challenges for our clients are still to come. In the ‘old’ world, 80% of our conversations would be about company growth and 20% or less about managing decline. We expect more conversations moving forward will, unfortunately, be about managing the process of business contraction.

Many companies will inevitably have to make more redundancies. We have already put in place an evolved product offering with this in mind. Through it, companies connect individuals directly to us as part of a redundancy package. Depending on the individual and their seniority, we can help develop their interview technique, supply market information, or assist with CV writing and expert advice on the right companies to target. For the individual, this gives them an instant support network to help during what can be a tough time and for our clients it helps them create a kinder process of redundancy.

Evolution, by nature, is ongoing. If anything, this has been a refreshing reminder that businesses should always keep an eye firmly on the future. It has actually been incredibly refreshing to have so much time to talk to clients, understand exactly what they want right now and to adapt our product offering accordingly – one of the many unexpected positives of these strange times.

What are the biggest challenges currently facing you as a business – or individual? I’d love to hear from you and always happy to talk about how I can help. Contact me on charlie.sell@arrowsgroup.com  

 

Please see below the links Bala is referring to in the video;

1) Just Eat Case Study: https://arrowsgroup.com/partner/just-eat/

2) A testimonial from the head of talent at Just Eat: http://shorturl.at/tBK34

3) IR35 in the Private Sector (PDF): Arrows IR35 (with rate card)

On the evening of Monday 23rd March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an unprecedented address to the whole of the UK, announcing the country was officially now in lockdown. No one should now be traveling to work unless it was absolutely impossible for them to work from home.

In what is without a question the most extraordinary year in my lifetime (and certainly my 16-year plus professional life), this announcement came as no great surprise on the back of weeks of increasingly desperate news. As a result, most businesses, including my own, had already put in steps to ensure all staff could work from home. At Arrows Group, we shut our UK office on Wednesday 18th March and, thanks to the hard work of our IT team, mobilised our technology and infrastructure to facilitate home working for all.

From a technology point of view, from day one of the lockdown things ran pretty smoothly. But, this is only one piece of the puzzle. What very few companies will have had to deal with before is perpetual remote working and how, against a background of economic uncertainty and non-stop harrowing news updates, that impacts the happiness, motivation and mental health of its people.

At the time of writing, now almost a month into remote working, I can say candidly that I have found my personal motivation has gone through waves. I have been amazed at how quickly it has been possible to find normality in this way of working. But there are challenges. I have two small children at home and, while my partner is now on furlough and able to look after them, for the first week we were sharing responsibility. Keeping to a fitness routine – so important at this time – seems to require more effort. And, like so many of us, what my job role entails on a day to day basis has changed considerably.

Arrows Group is a Technical Recruitment and Workforce Solutions consultancy. In times of economic uncertainty, recruitment tends to be one of the first things to be cut by companies. Naturally, we are no longer asking our clients about their pipeline for new roles! This has necessitated new conversations. Core to our business is understanding how we can help our clients and their worries today are very different from those of a few months ago. In the last weeks, I have had many, many conversations with senior individuals responsible for staff (one of the results of lockdown is that people are more accessible than ever before!). It’s very clear from these that this question of maintaining motivation is a consistent concern, and one of the most important ways we can help is by sharing our expertise around employee engagement.

Based on what we are doing at Arrows Group and my own professional expertise, these are some of my top recommendations for maintaining employee motivation and happiness in a time of lockdown.

1. Be swift, decisive and clear with your plans

In the earliest stages of the impact of Coronavirus and lockdown, the main preoccupation of many of our people was what would happen to their job – would there still be a job, what would that look like if so, would they be put on furlough? (looking after employees on furlough is an entirely separate article in itself).

When there is such sweeping uncertainty, it is very hard for anyone to maintain motivation or even to know what to motivate themselves towards. That is why businesses need to be swift, decisive and clearly communicate plans to all their people.

With recruitment having suffered a hammer blow, there was no option for us of ‘business as usual.’ To mitigate expected losses as much as possible, our step one was pay reduction at Board and Senior level. At the same time as communicating this to employees, we also shared what stages two and three would look like – stage two being making use of government support and making cost-savings within the business. Stage three, which is not yet in place, will be moving people to a four-day week if needed.

With many companies having to make redundancies and put people on furlough, this means those that are still working may have very different looking teams around them and need to adapt their role significantly. As is always the case, communication is key. Without this, confusion, anxiety and a lack of motivation will reign.

2. Balanced use of contact channels

Many companies incorporate home working as part of their regular working practices. But, the majority of the time would still have typically been spent face to face with colleagues in an office. Having all colleagues constantly working at home requires finding effective and motivating channels of communication.

Video conferencing has sky-rocketed from a relatively small part of the Arrows Group communications mix to our prime channel. We are clearly not alone – Zoom has now become one of the leading apps in the UK, most famously used by the UK government for cabinet video conferences. At Arrows Group, we use both MS Teams and Zoom (although we are conscious of growing reports of safety and privacy concerns connected to it).

The growth of video conferencing has brought pros and cons, including in terms of employee motivation. When you are in the office, there is a habit of mainly talking to the colleagues physically closest to where you sit. Video conferencing means everyone can now interact face to face – as a result, I’ve ironically had the opportunity to get to know some of my colleagues better than when we were in the same building! On the negative side, we initially found our video meetings were running a lot longer than our office-based meetings used to. We normally have a 30-minute meeting rule. With no-one knocking on the door of our video call to say time is up, people taking extra time to share their screens, and agendas not initially being set in advance in the same way that 30-minute rule was going out the window. An hour and a half of video conferencing more than once a day is a sure-fire way to drain your motivation to do any of the actions coming from said call.

Video calls also involve sitting in a static position. At Arrows Group, we often conduct our internal office-based meetings in ‘walking’ style; no seats allowed! This keeps the meeting focused, keeps the duration down and promotes fitness. I am now trying to introduce more one-on-one telephone conversations alongside group video calls to allow people to get up from their seats at home – both parties should encourage each other to be on the move around the house or even the garden if they have one. This is a great way to get the energy flowing!

Balanced use of communications channels is important for motivation. For social interaction, it is important to see each other via video call. But these should still be structured, purposeful and not unnecessarily long.

3. Recognise changed measures of success and continue to reward employees

In the normal course of events, Arrows Group employees have monthly revenue-based targets, with rewards for the highest achievers.

It would be absurd to maintain the same expectations of what success looks like from our people, given that the business landscape has so seismically changed. This is a time where most of us are having to be extremely flexible, adapt our roles, listen and understand the marketplace. But that doesn’t mean we should stop incentivising employees – it just means changing what ‘good’ looks likes.

Instead of rewarding revenue generation, we now recognise individuals who develop unique examples of going above and beyond to look after their clients. We send small gifts with personal notes to their home – a bottle of wine for example – as our thanks. The messages and photos we have had in response suggest this small gesture is appreciated.

4. Promote camaraderie and stimulate mental health through fun

Each person’s working from home situation will be different. Some might revel in not having to travel, and benefit from a spacious home with outdoor space. Others will miss their normal interaction with colleagues desperately and find being at home day after day isolating and oppressive.

As employers, we can go a long way to supporting our people by promoting colleague camaraderie. Part of that is keeping in touch regularly through the working week – again, via video and telephone calls instead of e-mail. We can also play a significant part in boosting spirits and mental health by bringing fun and enjoyment into the week.

We have trialed a number of activities to bring our people together including some unexpected surprises! Every Thursday at 4pm we host a video pub quiz – this works as a race between a number of different teams, each on individual video calls, to complete the answers to a quiz set by our HR Manager. This allows for some friendly internal competition between teams, bringing together our UK and Netherlands offices – and is open to those on furlough too. Currently, our UK perm team are quiz champions! Every Wednesday lunchtime we hold a live personal training session via our Arrows Group Instagram account – we encourage family members beyond Arrows Group to join in at home too and we get some very entertaining photos of people taking part with children simultaneously climbing on them! We hold a Friday video wrap up for the whole company. One week, we booked a surprise video guest who signed in – a fantastic drag queen, Janet, who brought some extra fun and glamour to the proceedings. And, using our Slack channel, in small groups daily inspiration topics are suggested and we all contribute images we feel represent that theme.

These are testing and rapidly changing times and every business is bound to have successes and missteps through it. With hindsight, there are certainly some things we could have done differently / better. But what holds true is that a company is simply a sum of its people and now more than ever businesses need to do their best to ensure they are happy, motivated and cared for.

If you would like to discuss ways to support and motivate your teams during these extraordinary times, contact Charlie Sell on charlie.sell@arrowsgroup.com

Our approach to giving and charitable activities has been a key element of Arrows Group’s growth.

I may be miles behind the big firms who have been doing this for years, but my experience has been that most SME’s are not benefitting properly from the ultimate win-wins that committing to a cause can give you. So, I thought I would share our story on this and back up the opening statement above!

We recently ran a campaign called ‘Donate Your Day’ – a partnership between the Arrows Group Foundation and War Child – and whilst putting this together I go to meet lots of SME’s and they all had one thing in common: they had the appetite for CSR and making a difference but struggled with execution – basically too busy, didn’t know where to start/ who to support or lacked a focal point to drive it internally. Sound familiar?

We were in a similar place for quite a while – there was a definite appetite at Arrows Group to support a charity and this came both from a sense of responsibility but also from pressure from our staff to answer questions around how we make a positive impact as a business. We flicked from one charity event to another and I seemed to be constantly running/ cycling / climbing and constantly hitting-up my patient friends and family for £50 / £100 to support causes I was not familiar with. Whilst this is a great start it didn’t enable us to make a lasting impact and at times wore a bit thin with my mates! Equally as important was the fact that it didn’t unlock any of the commercial benefits that having a strategic approach to giving can …well…give you!

With all of this in mind we set up the Arrows Group Foundation in 2015 which is charity focussed in supporting, protecting and educating disadvantaged children around the world. So far we have been involved in a number of projects from funding girls orphanages in inner city Delhi to helping local kids coming into the London workplace and most lately partnering with War Child to protect children caught up in conflict zones.

The first major impact this has had is how it allowed us to really focus our efforts on specific causes and make a genuine impact to the causes we have chosen. By committing to these projects long-term, we get to appreciate the difference we can make and this in turn motivates the whole business to continue and do more. Which brings us to the real benefits this brings to our business and our growth. By having a strong, well marketed approach to giving over time, this starts to generate a real ‘halo effect’ for our brand and how it is perceived to the outside world. Now, whilst the overriding priority is to raise money for the causes that need it most, every business also has one eye on the commercial benefits that CSR programmes can bring – so this is nothing new.

In a crowded industry like ours where brand differentiation and confidence are key, our foundation work has been very effective. It is a strong message for our Employee Value Proposition and supports us in attracting, retaining, developing and ultimately engaging our staff which is essential for lasting growth. More and more at interview stage we are being asked about ‘WHY’ we do what we do rather than just ‘what’ and ‘how’ and this gives us a practical way to demonstrate our purpose as a business.

It also gives us different ways to connect to our clients and contractors other than purely service provision. A few of our key clients are engaged with the work our foundation does and I am sure this will give us a deeper relationship which will be there for when we need it.

Finally, I think it gives our sector as a whole some decent PR. I am really proud that over 20 other recruitment companies joined us on ‘Donate Your Day’ by working for free on June 20^th (World Refugee Day) and making a huge difference to people who really do need our help. This reflects so well on our sector and I think next year – with a bit more planning – could be much bigger and I hope we really move the needle for our collective industry image.

Thanks so much for everyone who got involved…and to War Child for putting on a great party!

By James Parsons

CEO Arrows Group, Trustee Arrows Group Foundation.

 

Arrows Group. Work Hard. Deliver Excellence. Make a Difference.

 

We are super proud with the ‘1% Pledge’ news that our founder and CEO James Parsons has recently announced!

1% OF ALL Arrows group profits will be donated to our foundation annually to help support kids around the world that need it the most. This is great news for us and our partner charity War Child.

Established in 2015, the Arrows Group Foundation is proud to work a number of children’s causes around the world all of which are focussed on supporting disadvantaged children in having the best chance in life. We primarily focus on causes like care, education, employment readiness and mentoring.

We raise funds to support projects we care about and are also looking forward to a busy year of volunteering.

Previous projects include funding girls orphanages in Delhi which provide a safe environment for those that need it the most and then supporting them through their education and helping with the transition into meaningful employment.

http://www.arrowsgroupfoundation.org/

Why WarChild?

In 2019, it is shocking that so many children remain the innocent victims of war – 10 children are forcibly displaced every minute because of conflict or persecution (UNHCR) and one in six children worldwide are living in conflict-affected areas. Abduction, violence and recruitment into armed groups are just some of the challenges these children face. Children lose their homes, their family and friends, their childhood and their chance to achieve their full potential. Their situation is desperate.

War Child is the only charity that specialises in supporting children affected by war. We don’t just help children when war breaks out, we commit to their communities for the long term, staying after the fighting has stopped and the TV cameras have left, ensuring young people are equipped to rebuild their lives.

Guided by the needs of children we focus on:

Protection – providing safe spaces for children to live, play and learn, and psychological first aid to help them overcome the trauma of conflict

Education – removing barriers to education and providing literacy and numeracy skills

Livelihoods – delivering life skills and business development training to vulnerable young people and their families

Some of our Fundraising campaigns we are participating in 2019;

• Mud Run/Mud Masters, Amsterdam
• 3 peaks challenge, London
• London to Amsterdam cycle
• Royal Parks ½ Marathon, London