Four ways to reduce recruitment costs
WHAT DEFINES A GOOD LEADER? LOOK FOR THESE SIX QUALITIES
Modern business challenges can require new approaches. Leadership will need to evolve in order to continue to guide organisations in tomorrow's world of work. But what are the characteristics of a good modern leader in the workplace - and how can organisations develop them?
Many studies draw parallels between effective leadership and solid organisational performance. But whether they’re a junior manager or a senior executive, the qualities that leaders need are changing.
Nearly 1,500 HR professionals ranked leadership development as the number one priority for 2025, with managers feeling 'overwhelemed' by the expansion of their responsibilities. In today’s unpredictable world, you must combine traditional leadership skills with new abilities. So, what does an effective modern leader look like?
1. Remember what makes a good leader
Before looking at the new skills future leaders may need, it is worth reflecting on what a leader actually is.
What are the qualities of a good leader? It’s not what you may think.
Being in charge of colleagues does not necessarily make you a ‘leader’. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explains: “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”
Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield believes that good leadership is: “Not about glorious crowning acts. It’s about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it. Especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter.”
There may be varying opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of leaders. But overall, most people believe that great leaders motivate their team members to perform their best and achieve common goals.
What traits do you need to achieve this in the modern workplace?
2. Use blended leadership styles for a VUCA world
Stacey Philpot from Deloitte Consulting maintains that the core skills needed historically in leadership roles have remained unchanged.
“These skills allow someone to become a leader faster than their peers. This is even true in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment,” she says.
The core skills for leading in a VUCA environment include:
- Pattern recognition
- Motivation
- Agility
- Emotional intelligence
- Ability to understand, control and express emotions
This represents psychological assessments of 23,000 senior leaders globally over the past 25 years.
Consider introducing servant leadership:
Leaders need new styles of leadership to deal with changing cultures. Being comfortable with not having the answer and owning failure can create an environment of trust and openness.
Collectively, these behaviours form ‘servant leadership’. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) defines servant leadership as emphasising behaviours and values such as:
- Active listening
- Empathy
- Leading by example
These are instead of opting for a more authoritative, ‘command-and-control’ leadership style. Leaders create the conditions for team members to excel by displaying vulnerability. But given the stigma around servant leadership, how can organisations encourage it?
How to combat stigma surrounding servant leadership:
Alsu Polyakova, HR Leader for GE Healthcare, says reducing stigma around servant leadership will take a specific strategy. Most importantly frequent performance appraisals for leaders.
“We give leaders lots of opportunities for self-reflection, so they understand how they behave,” she says. GE Healthcare’s most successful leaders help to encourage behavioural change, Polyakova says. The company measures success by how well employees rate leaders on achieving GE Healthcare’s ‘cultural pillars’. These pillars include inspiring trust and empowering employees.
3. Create a culture of trust in the workplace
Gaining workers’ trust is more important than ever. One way to build trust is for leaders to take action on issues such as climate change. 71 percent of employees consider their CEOs’ social awareness as critically important, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.
Social awareness may yield rich rewards. The Edelman poll shows that workers who trust their employers are far more engaged and remain more loyal than their more sceptical peers.
Leadership styles are clearly changing. The most effective leaders will need to tailor their styles to suit different scenarios, says Professor Sattar Bawany. “Leaders need a broad repertoire of management styles and the wisdom to know when each style should be used,” he says. “In crisis scenarios like cybersecurity breaches, for example, leadership should be authoritarian because the scenario is unstructured.”
4. Adapt your leadership style for different generations
Managers must also balance leadership styles to suit different generations. Modern workplaces will soon house up to five generations under one roof. Therefore, there will be many people with differing preferences on leadership style.
As of 2023, millennials are the biggest group in the UK workforce, at 35 percent. Modern leaders must mix old and new leadership styles that meet the needs of younger generations. Doing so will future proof organisations. However, new leadership approaches cannot come at the expense of alienating older workers.
5. Commit to lifelong learning
With the workplace evolving so rapidly, leaders cannot rely on past experience alone to get by. Ben Farmer, Head of HR at Amazon UK agrees: “Experience is not always synonymous with wisdom and judgement. And naivety doesn’t always engender novel thinking and openness to change.”
Organisations should look for leaders who understand the future as well as those with experience. “Success comes from the ability to combine understanding of exciting, new trends with the experience required to put that knowledge into action,” says Farmer.
But what is the right balance? There is no one-size-fits-all approach when balancing experience with adaptability. Achieving the right balance will mostly depend on the organisation and the sector it operates in.
6. Be conscious of culture
Organisational culture is an important factor. Risk-averse firms may prefer experience over novel thinking. Leaders may be fearful of a backlash from stakeholders should novel thinking fail. To lower risk, companies should seek leaders who use both scientific evidence and intuition when making decisions.
Ultimately, there’s no single blueprint for an effective modern leader. Each organisation must tailor their approach to leadership development. There must be a focus on organisational culture, industry nuances and employee mix.
But above all, leaders should recognise that today’s reality may be old news tomorrow.
For more expert advice, take a look at the following articles:
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FOUR WAYS TO REDUCE RECRUITMENT COSTS
Navigating budget cuts can be challenging for recruitment teams. It can feel like there are expectations to spend less but deliver the same results – especially in the current economic climate. But, by opting to outsource parts, or all of your recruitment process, you can tap into expertise and insights that would otherwise be beyond your budget.
Outsourcing can help you save time and money at every stage of your recruitment process. From knowing which sourcing strategy will get you the best return, to benchmarking salaries globally to enable you to get the skills you need, at the right cost.
1. Reduce internal recruiting costs with redeployment
Redundancy is a word that strikes fear into the heart of a business. As one of the most traumatic events for some employees, redundancy is among the worst jobs for HR teams to manage. When viewed as a cost-saving exercise, redundancy poses particular difficulties.
Sensitive handling of redundant employees and those remaining can help counter the negative effects. Effective redeployment is just one such method that can help ease the impact.
However, redeployment can be tricky to handle in addition to your day-to-day role. Having a team that are a step removed from the inner workings of your organisation can help to smooth the process.
It’s for this reason that one of our largest banking clients turned to Hays. This particular client needed help to manage the redeployment of their existing employees who were at threat of redundancy.
Following an in-depth review of the existing resourcing process, our team chose to focus on redeployment. After identifying an employee who was at risk of redundancy, the team would arrange an interview. During this interview we would establish their:
- Skills
- Preferences
- Desired location
- Current benefits package
The employee then became part of an internal talent pool. This meant that our client would contact the at-risk employee about suitable job openings, before approaching external talent.
Key result: Save thousands in redundancy costs
We kept in touch with each individual following a period of redundancies. We ensured regular communication, providing advice, guidance and coaching to ease the transition.
Over 24 months, we redeployed 1,800 people. The last 65 of these redeployments resulted in savings of £2 million in redundancy costs.
2. Choose one Master Vendor to maximise value
A local government body recently made the decision to consolidate their recruitment in a master vendor arrangement. Their goal was to reduce expenditure while also reducing the strain on in-house staff.
Following a competitive tender exercise, the client chose Hays as their partner. Our role was to consolidate all permanent and temporary recruitment.
Initially this client conducted separate tenders for Professional, Administrative and IT disciplines. However, the client quickly realised that by choosing Hays for all three skill sets, they could get more value for their money.
Hays took responsibility for all temporary recruitment and external permanent recruitment campaigns not delivered in-house. In total, we were managing £70 million in contingent worker spend per year. A Hays team was present on-site throughout to ensure HR processes were working as they should. The on-site team also took care of all line manager relationships. This approach ensured that the time to hire, quality of hires, and number of hires was of a high standard.
Key result: Source up to 95% of hires directly
Choosing one master vendor has led to a direct source rate of 95%. This is in addition to a three-day turnaround for submissions from applications. Most importantly costs savings have been significant, delivering in excess of £4 million in year one.
3. Create talent networks that double as cash reservoirs
Many first-time Managed Service Programme (MSP) buyers turn to Hays asking to help manage their increasing contractor spend. Often, MSP buyers are seeking the following factors:
- Visibility
- Control
- Reduction in risk
- Better quality candidates
- Cost savings
An Australian energy pioneer found themselves in this very situation due to an expanding contractor population. This company gave Hays the responsibility for end-to-end management of all direct and third-party supplier sourcing.
At go-live, the temporary workforce was 180 strong, reaching 550 at its peak. To meet the 24-hour response time and reduce costs, we began managing talent networks by:
- Identifying candidates with relevant skills and cultural alignment
- Rolling out social media initiatives
- Leveraging candidates from permanent recruitment campaigns and career sites
- Pre-screening candidates to ensure they meet skill set and cultural requirements
- Ensuring regular contact with the talent pool, providing an opportunity to update candidate records
Key result: Reduce recruitment costs on contract employees
Cost savings of approximately $1.8 million achieved during the initial transfer of contractors alone.
4. Consolidate your suppliers to reduce costs
The more often you need to use a service, the more aware you become of how different suppliers can meet your needs. And recruitment is no exception.
One Hays client is a world leading supplier of mail and logistics services. This company employs over 500,000 people across more than 200 countries. However, this client also has a large number of recruitment suppliers to match.
The amount of recruitment suppliers was causing the logistics and communications giant a problem. The logistics company was experiencing high administrative costs, a lack of transparency and excessively high direct and indirect costs.
In a bid to streamline processes and reduce annual expenditure, an MSP offered a neat solution. This single MSP bundled, organised, coordinated, ordered and billed all 150 existing non-strategic suppliers and vendors.
Key result: Simplify recruitment with one supplier
Bundling non-strategic services has reduced the number of suppliers and achieved long-term stability.
The mail and logistics group enjoys faster access to specialists when it comes to the procurement of services. They also benefit from a better overview of current developments in the market.
If you’d like to learn how we can help you to reduce your costs without compromising your employer brand, contact us today.
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