THE ONLY THING CONSISTENT IS ...CHANGE

In the last two years the high street has ‘lost’ brands such as Laura Ashley, Bright House,

Oasis, Warehouse, Karen Millen, Cath Kidston and TM Lewin, in addition we have seen

store closures from the likes of Monsoon Accessorize, Boots, JLP, Victoria Secret and

Wilko’s. Debenhams is now an online only business courtesy of Boohoo, TopShop is now

part of the ASOS portfolio and Selfridges was sold to the Central Group.

All that coupled with a major shift of retail sales to online, I cannot think of another 2 year

period in the last 30 years where we have seen so much rapid change. And believe me, from

where I am sitting I can see further change coming our way during 2022.

It seems that besides death and taxes, change is another certainty in our life time.

What does all this mean from a recruitment perspective?

Well, changes in the retail and food & beverage sectors have been the greatest contributor to

the rapid rise of the unemployment rate to a whopping 5.2% in October 2020 (from 3.8% in

Jan 2019), however, somewhat miraculously (imo) unemployment has dropped to 4.2% as at

end of 2021.

However, what these statistics hide is the disparity in employment opportunities (read:

vacancies) between various job functions and salary levels.

For example, there are many retail operations managers (and directors) available for work at

short notice, however there are precious few opportunities for them. On the other hand any

digital professional with a successful track record can have a number of career opportunities

to choose from and will probably be counter offered when they resign, because replacing

them will prove to be hard work.

Unfortunately, in the first scenario this means a return to companies receiving 100’s of

applications for advertised jobs. From an employer’s perspective, whilst wading through each

CV to find a few gems is a time consuming job, companies also have to recognize that ‘their

gem’ may not be unemployed and is currently working for the competition, so identifying and

approaching those adds to the workload....and in this market, those still in a job are less

likely to change and would rather weather the storm than risk a change. So a relatively tricky

situation.

In the second scenario however, no amount of advertising will guarantee a company the kind

of response they need to have a good selection of talent for the vacancy they advertised.

The only fail safe manner to successfully recruit in that situation is by directly approaching

individuals with the desired background and experience.

After 25 years of executive search in the retail sector, it is my informed opinion that, for all the

reasons listed above, the most effective way of identifying and attracting high calibre talent to

your business is to hand that process over to a professional. Someone who understands and

knows your business intimately well, who is genuinely interested in providing sound and

proper career advice and who has a successful track record of matching candidates to line

managers. And, if necessary, who is prepared to speak to 100+ individuals to bring a search

to a successful conclusion.

In the long run (and in fact also in the short term) it will save money to get the recruitment

process done properly.

Btw we’re open for business!