I can hear you groan reading the title of this piece, but bear with me. This isn’t about how to manage a business through an agile lens, nor is it about the benefits of the work/life balance flexible working provides. If you want to hear about that, Julie Robinson at Greatwell Homes has written a great piece for CIH that’s well worth reading.
Here, I want to talk about the impact a truly agile approach to work can have on your talent attraction strategy, and why as an organisation it’s no longer a ‘nice to offer’ but a ‘must include’ when it comes to competing for the best candidates the sector has to offer.
We recently concluded one of the most full-on recruitment processes I’ve ever been involved in (and I’ve been involved in a few!). This was an Executive Director role to work alongside Julie at Greatwell Homes, and really opened my eyes to how their way of working gives them access to the ENTIRE market.
A great example
If you don’t know, Greatwell Homes own over 5000 properties and were formed by LSVT in Wellingborough in 2007. Over the past few years they have transformed from a very traditional RP to a values driven, community centric organisation with a clear focus on their people- both residents and staff. This transformation included a change to their working practices (a journey they were on before the pandemic forced many of us to follow suit) which involved re-purposing their offices to a hub and establishing a remote workforce. But their agility doesn’t stop there.
The flexible matrix
Their Executive Team (made up of the CEO and two Executive Directors) work on a matrix management basis. Each ED has a core responsibility for one key risk area, and the rest of the service areas can (and do) flex over time.
So what impact does that have on their recruitment? Well, a number of things really:
- It opens up the whole market – When recruiting for an Executive role, our brief will often be limited to a certain geography and skillset. Even when working hybrid, although the radius is wider than a traditional office based role, it still needs to be commutable on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. On this occasion, not only were we able to open the role up to our entire national network, but also pretty much any discipline as long as they had the required executive/strategic background. The one area that we discounted was a similar background to the existing Executive Director (Finance/HR). This resulted in a huge response of quality applicants worthy of consideration (circa 80-90).
- It increases applicant appetite – I don’t think they would mind me saying but Greatwell Homes wasn’t a name on everyone’s lips. They have a strong reputation locally but not so much nationally, and that was the feedback we received from many applicants. However, it was their innovative work practices that got many peoples’ attention and encouraged them to apply. It also significantly increased the positive responses from our pro-active approaches (more than doubling from 29% to 62%). This would usually be unheard of for a rural RP of 5000 stock.
- It helps with staff retention – the ability to move services across executives gives those people below the opportunity to take on new challenges, new responsibilities or just learn from a new line manager/executive. With the ambition and attention span/patience of the modern workforce, the lack of new challenges/experiences/responsibilities often leads to employees looking elsewhere. It also keeps things fresh for the Executives themselves and keeps them engaged and challenged.
- It helps with staff development – As the organisation is inherently fluid, it is commonplace to have open conversations with their managers about what they want to do. This can enable staff to have a portfolio career rather than the traditional linear career progression. This can only be beneficial to both the organisation itself as it eliminates silo-working (as people have an understanding across a number of disciplines), but also to individuals as it gives them more of a breadth of expertise which is more and more critical when moving into Executive roles. In a world where learning and development is a key driver for workplace satisfaction, this is critical in keeping your talented employees!
A results-based strategy
The outcome of this approach to work (and hopefully our bespoke recruitment campaign) meant that we had an unprecedented response to the recruitment campaign which resulted in the CEO saying that the final decision was “one of the most difficult in my professional life”.
So, if you are struggling with your talent attraction and retention strategies (and any related issues), you may want to think about what your working practices say about you as an organisation, and how you can adapt in order to address these issues.
If you have any specific questions on the above process, feel free to get in touch.
Barry Forsythe, Associate Director Greenacre Recruitment