UKWA PDFS MAY - United Kingdom Warehousing Association

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30 Employment Issues Employers are struggling to find and employ talented supply chain and logistics professionals , says Barrie Dowsett, managing director of supply chain and logistics recruitment specialists, The BJD Group Getting the best for your business The rewards for employing top talent are well recognised. Extensive research confirms that high performing organisations achieve competitive advantage by having superior talent. So why can’t we simply identify the characteristics of the very best talent for our business and then recruit them The answer lies in today’s marketplace and how it has changed. No longer can we produce idyllic job and person specifications with affordable remuneration packages that will always result in a successful appointment. So what has changed Unlike the classical management areas such as finance, operations and marketing, careers in supply chain and logistics are relatively new. A few years ago many of the management and specialist roles we require today didn’t exist and much of the top talent leaving education has, until recently, not recognised supply chain and logistics as areas providing extraordinary career prospects. Even today supply chain and logistics remain some way down the agenda of career paths for most university leavers. The hunt to recruit top people in the logistics arena has not been helped by changing demographics. The pendulum has swung from a surplus of ambitious people and a shortage of good career opportunities and, whereas previous generations would fight over good jobs with great employers and competition for promotion and progression was strong, in today’s job market demand for great people has outstripped supply. To attract the right people many organisations are increasingly developing creative employer brands, talent acquisition strategies and retention plans. It’s now more common to see employee engagement initiatives, flexible benefits and work/life balance options offered to staff at all levels. However, despite their talent acquisition strategies and offers of impressive employee incentive packages many companies still fail to attract the right person to fill a key vacancy. Some of the most common rea- UKWA members get personnel services from BJD UKWA has joined forces with The BJD Group to offer members a host of personnel-related benefits, including: • Up to a 20 per cent reduction on recruitment fees; • Free enhanced recruitment advertising – BJD will advertise a UKWA member’s vacancy on its website and other relevant ‘job boards’ as well as selected printed media at no charge; • A free 24-hour recruitment advice line; • A free recruitment audit and benchmarking service that will help UKWA members companies to review their current recruitment policies and assess how effective they are; • A free salary benchmarking service for warehousing and logistics management positions; • Free consultancy service to help identify the best type of person to recruit – this combined with the salary benchmarking service can improve a company’s performance dramatically. For details of how UKWA members can take advantage of the services available through The BJD Group contact UKWA on tel: 0207 836 5522 May 2008 www.ukwa.org.uk November/December2006
Employment Issues 31 sons for this failure include: • Poorly written advertisements – often heavily weighted towards job descriptions; • People from earlier generations looking for mirror images of themselves; • Responsibilities and tasks that are wish lists • No account taken of attractiveness or otherwise of the employer, location or remuneration Attack the need not the person A winning recruitment strategy involves identifying your resourcing needs and being realistic about solutions. Before embarking on a recruitment campaign I would advise any UKWA member to: • Seek out advice - someone else will have tried it before; • Test for a realistic outcome before committing to an expensive, time consuming exercise; • If in doubt consider alternatives such as splitting the role, use of an Interim (at least initially); • In your own mind, identify with the perfect candidate. Empathise with their needs not yours and think of the attractions the role might offer - rather than straightforward descriptions of what it involves on a day to day basis. When recruiting most companies draw up shortlists of candidates - but be realistic about short list numbers. These days short lists will comprise fewer candidates. Those employers that insist on waiting for arbitrary short list numbers to be “Those employers that insist on waiting for arbitrary short list numbers to be reached before moving on to the next stage of the recruiting process are in danger of losing the best available talent to their competitors” reached (ie, they wait until they’ve got, say, five names on their shortlist before moving on to the next stage of the recruiting process) are in danger of losing the best available talent to their competitors. Remember there is only one perfect candidate for each vacancy - grab that person when you can. Rob Swindells, group marketing director of the frozen foods distributor Langdon Group talks about why he became involved with the Diploma in Retail Shop work Diplomas are part of one of the largest shake ups in education since the introduction of GCSEs and A Levels. They will provide a unique opportunity to broaden existing provision for 14-19 education with a specific focus on vocational education. There are plans to have 17 new Diplomas in place by 2011, each will combine work-specific skills and practical workplace experience with academic knowledge of Skills for Life (literacy and numeracy) and ICT. One example of these is the Diploma in Retail. Logistics forms a key element of this new Diploma. Over one million people in the UK are employed in Supply Chain Logistics mainly as truck drivers, warehousemen, administrators and managers and yet this vital process has never been subject to much interest from the world of Academia – with a few notable exceptions who run some excellent degree courses in this field. It is appropriate that logistics is included as part of the new Retail Diploma because quite simply without an efficient supply chain operating behind the “front of house”, retail businesses will fail. If evidence were needed for that statement it appeared during the year 2000 fuel protests when retail shelves emptied rapidly – particularly in my specialised sector of short life chilled foods where supply chains are extremely short (in time). Recognised qualification I became involved because I knew our industry needed a course offering practical education in the complex world of retail and logistics leading to a qualification which would become recognised throughout the industry. I thought that the creation of this diploma would help raise awareness amongst young people about the career opportunities available in what has previously been an unfashionable career option (I refer to the logistics sector specifically) . After over 30 years in management in this area, I know that logistics is endlessly fascinating as it operates within a sort of three dimensional game challenge, 24 hours per day, seven days per week. When it comes to aspiring operational managers in logistics we are looking for the sort of problem solving skills that arise from lateral thinking and anyone keen on games of strategy is likely to do well in this field, where service providers create complex links between manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and of course retailers. I was very pleased to be able to contribute to the course content and I am delighted that this innovative educational programme is being integrated with traditional skills training including Maths and English skills. The course structure is designed around three achievement levels which will give employers a clear understanding of the skill levels achieved. Hopefully this diploma will become the “Gold Standard” qualification in the speciality of retail and logistics and I hope that students will understand what a rewarding career this could lead to. January 2007 www.ukwa.org.uk May 2008
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Page 5 and 6: Association News 5 MULTIMODAL 2008
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UKWA PDFS MAY - United Kingdom Warehousing Association

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