Without a doubt, 2008 is proving to be an interesting year and the very latest trends and issues facing the HR recruitment sector are brought to you from the people running the specific Digby Morgan divisions.

Commerce, Public Sector and Search

Nicola Grimshaw, Digby Morgan’s director responsible for leading the commerce, public sector and search divisions, gives Human Resourcefulness an update on the state of the market across her sectors.

“Across the commerce business, we have continued to enjoy great success with an ongoing healthy book of national and international assignments across our offices in both London and the Thames Valley. Talented senior HR professionals are still in short supply and companies are still scouring the market for the best candidates – for instance, we’ve successfully placed dozens of HR professionals in six figure positions during the first eight months of the year. Our international business continues to boom and, for the majority of these roles, we have successfully used a retained file search as our recruitment solution, demonstrating the strength and breadth of the Digby Morgan database and network.

“The Digby Morgan Search business - which focuses on the appointment of senior executives across all functions of the HR profession both in the UK and overseas - continues to strengthen, with several key HR Director appointments in the energy sector as well as other assignments, particularly within the reward discipline.
“As you will read elsewhere in this newsletter, we have some established and strong testimonials in the public sector and have taken steps to strengthen this part of our business - particularly within the NHS and PCT sector together with Central Government and not for profit bodies – with the appointment of new, specialist senior consultants.

“We are continuing to work closely with our candidates and are seeing an increasing number registering with us who desire to move to the commercial sector having been affected by turbulent times in the City. Demand is still strong for top tier reward candidates as well as strategic business partners - individuals who really can demonstrate their contribution to both the people and business strategies. Finally, we are expecting an increase in the demand for ER/IR skills with the possible expectations from tougher union stances, pay bargaining and restructuring of businesses.”

Entry to Mid Level

Matthew Chester, who runs the Digby Morgan team responsible for the search and selection of entry to mid level HR professionals across all industries, reports on the latest happenings in that area.

“In my opinion the media has ‘over-emphasised' the credit crunch and problematic market conditions. That said, we have seen some notable changes reflecting a softening of the market in comparison to previous years when we have experienced considerable growth. Our key financial services clients appear to have been a little more hesitant about recruiting in this economic climate and this has been reflected in problems getting sign off for key roles as well as a lengthier stop start process. There also seems to have been an impact on prospective candidates as it would appear that employees are being offered more opportunities internally and this has resulted in a slight dip in candidate movement at this time of the year.

“That said, the fact also remains that there are interesting opportunities out there in the market. Subsequently, we have focused more on advertising in an attempt to attract more people to consider the opportunities we have on offer and to try and quash any feelings that some people have which is to sit tight and not move in order to avoid suffering the LIFO (last in first out) redundancy risk in a new position. As a result of this focus, we are one of the leading advertisers in the trade press year to date.

“With the softening of the financial services industry, we have been able to exploit the opportunity to expand our client base and work with some really very interesting companies across other industries. For example, we are currently running a large recruitment campaign for a healthcare group and are proactively targeting a number of clients in the public sector.
“Running into 2009, we are bullish and remain focused on maintaining and developing our relationships, some of which go back 20 years.”

An Interim Update

“The summer has proved typically quiet as decision makers in businesses have taken their well deserved breaks,” explains Digby Morgan’s COO, Alistair Cook. “Although we have begun to see activity pick up we will need another couple of weeks to know for certain if the demand for HR interim managers will rise as usual post-summer.

“Some of the larger financial services organisations who put some of their interim HR recruitment on hold earlier this year have begun to show signs of hiring people into key project roles and the public sector continues to be hirers of HR interims supporting cultural and structural change programs. In fact, where there continues to be a demand for interim HR candidates, these roles are often driven by projects and periods of change.

“There has been a reduction in the demand for learning & development and in-house resourcing candidates though there remains a demand for candidates within change and project management, outsourcing and off-shoring, employee relations and reward and C&B.

“On the whole there is now stiff competition between candidates for interim roles and, as a result, businesses are being exposed to more choice than in previous years. This widening choice, combined with an overall ‘hesitation’ in the market generally, is tending to slow recruitment and decision making processes. Consequently, this is beginning to force interim managers to consider positions at slightly lower daily rates than they might previously have accepted.

“When looking at the overall picture and in the year to date, Digby Morgan’s interim business has taken a similar number of assignments to the same period in 2007. No doubt the next month or so will give us a better indication of whether this is likely to turn into a downward cycle or, just maybe, those clients who are not able or willing to commit to permanent hires will mean a continuing demand for interim managers.”

The City Update

“HR recruitment across the City division at Digby Morgan remains cautiously optimistic at the present moment,” says Dona Battat from the company’s City team. “With the market downturn a lot of firms are looking at new ways of cutting costs, streamlining policies and procedures, and maximising an often shrinking budget – ‘getting more bang for your buck’. So we're seeing an increase in demand for experienced compensation people who can be creative with compensation strategy in an attempt to be more cost-effective in a tight economic climate.

“In addition many firms are currently undergoing significant transformation and restructure as a result of both market conditions and also the continued evolution and change of the HR model. There is, therefore, a demand for employee relations specialists who can manage this change and ensure that an employer is secure from a risk point of view.

“We are seeing an increasing number of clients starting to look forward to 2009 as the City moves into its traditionally quieter period. The general sentiment is that there has been enough bad news this year and now is the time to look onwards and upwards. Graduate recruitment has recently come back on the agenda for many firms and also learning & development initiatives that were scaled back are being revisited as companies plan their strategy for next year and look at new ways to retain talent.

“The recent market developments around Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and others have created a brief surge in interest for top calibre senior Business Partners. Good people are always in demand despite current market conditions and some of our other clients are looking to pick up the pieces from the fallout and cherry-pick the best HR people to improve their own teams.

“We do anticipate a quieter market over the next few weeks and a lot of our business is likely to be with smaller niche players in the financial services industry - and wider professional services firms - as the larger investment banks move into what has traditionally been a quiet period for them. Something that has now been exacerbated by the downturn.”

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