Digby Morgan director, Nicola Grimshaw, takes a look at how the recession has effected HR recruitment for smaller and midsized companies.

Working with some of our clients in the SME sector is always a fast paced, demanding yet hugely enjoyable experience - and the challenges presented by the recession have done nothing to change this!

Despite more testing times of late, we’ve been very active working with a range of SMEs from across many industries and locations in the UK. Whether in growth or consolidation mode, more often than not we’ve found that the size and flexibility of these businesses has meant that they can move faster and adapt to change more quickly than some of their bigger, more ‘established’ rivals and, indeed, quite often steal an invaluable march on them.

We’ve seen that this flexibility and speed is especially important and pertinent with some of our ‘fast track’ clients operating in niche or specialist areas of a market. We’re working closely with several creative, demanding organisations such as these to source entrepreneurial, hands-on HR professionals. Go-getters who can work very closely with the business leaders as they work to deliver high growth targets. Career success is often recognised through accelerated promotion and, given that they are often part of a small effective team, these individuals often find themselves genuinely working at the fore front of the business where they have ample opportunity to prove their added value to a business.

Additionally, we’re seeing that small HR teams in many SMEs have also meant that companies have needed to move quickly to replace key HR professionals as soon as there’s been a resignation.

Finally, it’s quite rare to find an in-house recruitment function in the SME sector that is able to provide the advice and support found in larger businesses. Consequently, in many SMEs we’re working closely with the MD or chief operating officer of the business in order to fully understand what type of person is really needed to support the business. Many organisations, in fact, are looking to recruit their first HR specialists as a wider recognition of ‘people and talent’ issues takes hold in the drive for competitive advantage and the onerous regulatory environment that we operate in demands HR specialism in the senior management team.


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