Greenacre MD Dan Short has been actively engaging with industry professionals and thought leaders across the housing sector this quarter, sharing key recruitment market and leadership development insights and trends across some of the top housing events this season.
Most recently, Dan joined a panel of industry experts at the CIH Brighton Housing Conference, where the conversation focused on addressing the critical challenges surrounding skills attraction and retention within the sector. These discussions radiated around understanding the current recruitment landscape, identifying the most in-demand skills that are in short supply, and exploring effective strategies that we expect to see more of in the months and years to come.
Below, Dan delves into some of the insights and recommendations he shared at the conference, shedding some light on how organisations can shift from a reactive, vacancy-led approach towards a more proactive talent management style.
A transient workforce in a volatile jobs market
The job market has seen extremely high levels of movement in the last 12 to 18 months, making it highly competitive for employers to attract in new talent, in particular where specialist skills apply. Through our recent conversations, some organisations have experienced over 40% turnover last year and many more sighting 25% – 30%. There are a number of reasons for this level of movement, most notably, there has been a lot of movement at executive level in the last few years, which has filtered down to other areas of the organisation as they reshape the organisation for the future. There has also been a significant amount of organisational change and transformation activity, and more recent mergers and acquisitions, all creating outflows and inflows at the same time.
We have seen a huge spike in demand for specialist skills in a number of key areas; Investment Planning, Asset Data Insight, Compliance and Building Safety and Surveying among others. These skills shortages in specialist areas are driving up salary levels and day rates, and the spike in demand, combined with limited supply, has favoured larger organisations who have the ability to pay more competitively. This environment has made it much harder for smaller organisations and local authorities to compete. Furthermore, competition from the private sector has been a drain on the talent supply across the housing sector.
Culture is key, and environment is everything
There has been a steady decline in employee engagement nationwide which has led to higher levels of staff turnover. Employee expectations have also changed over the last 3 years, in particular the expectation of having more control of when and where we work. Hybrid working has now been normalised and has broadened career options. This being said we have noticed that the execution of hybrid working remains a work in progress in many cases and there is a danger that people can start to feel disconnected from their organisational culture if not implemented properly. A recent study by Gallup found that employees who strongly agreed that they feel connected to their organisational culture are 55% less likely to look for a new job. This demonstrates the importance of getting it right and supporting leaders to be able to adapt to hybrid leadership.
We are experiencing an interesting turning point in the jobs market, and organisations are finding the right balance between providing a flexible working environment whilst also recognising the benefits of having people back in the office. The recent trend to have employees back in the office 2-3 days a week takes us back to a place where we may be recruiting in a locality and limiting our ability to attract and retain a more diverse talent pool.
People move jobs much more freely and we have witnessed an increase in people leaving jobs in the first 6-12 months if certain conditions are not right for them. This aforementioned activity creates a lot of disruption in teams and creates a very challenging environment for ‘managers in the middle’ to find space to think longer term.
So with this level of movement and the rising cost of competing in the open market, what are businesses doing to shift from a reactive, vacancy-led approach, to a more proactive, longer-term approach to identify and develop talent from within?
Creating the right internal opportunities builds market resilience
We are seeing more organisations being much more proactive in their workforce planning and improving their internal mobility which is helping them to identify future leadership gaps and begin to pipeline talent from within. We expect to see a lot more organisations seeking to create opportunities for employees to reskill and upskill, moving across departments and functions, and exploring new career paths internally. This approach has helped organisations to build resilience, become more agile and less vulnerable to people leaving as there are opportunities to find stretch in a familiar environment.
We have seen some excellent examples recently where people have moved internally from one discipline to another and their organisation has provided the necessary technical support (internally and externally) to wrap around them and help with the transition, acting as a critical friend. We have also seen an increase in demand for mentoring and coaching to support people as they step up to new levels or into new areas of work.
Another critical retentions strategy is to prioritise investment in leadership development early. By creating a culture of learning and growth, people visualise opportunities and are more likely to stay engaged. This helps with employer branding in the marketplace, allows managers to hire for potential and values, and really helps with succession planning.
Greenacre has had the privilege of supporting a number of organisations in designing a range of bespoke leadership programmes to develop the next generation of leaders. Acting early to give new leaders the tools as they start their leadership journey helps businesses to build a much more diverse leadership pipeline for the future. Additionally, we have seen a greater appetite for organisations partnering up on joint leadership development programmes, providing opportunities for new leaders to expand their professional network, share experiences and bring new ideas back into their organisations.
Collaboration for collective success
Collaboration generally is becoming much more prevalent, where organisations are willing to share resources, partner up, and work together. We expect to see more examples across the sector where organisations find ways to share specialist resources enabling them to hire individuals at a much higher level and share the cost.
By focusing on these areas, organisations can reduce their reliance on external recruitment, whilst improving their ability to identify and develop existing talent from within their own organisation. This can help improve employee retention, reduce recruiting costs, and create a more agile, diverse and resilient workforce.
Dan Short