Change Is The New Constant

We're living in a world where the pace of change is faster than ever before and only continues to speed up.

Andrew Mears, Director at Solutions Recruitment, talks about how their firm helps its clients to navigate in a world of such fast-paced change, while adapting their own business to fit.

The Solutions ideology

What is abundantly clear is that Solutions Recruitment is committed to investing time in getting to know their clients at every stage of their relationship; ensuring they fully understand how and where they can add value.

“We don’t just work with anyone who approaches us; if we don’t feel we add value, we are not afraid to say no.” At the outset of any partnership, Solutions Recruitment invest time with the client; whether that be attending a meeting, spending half a day in the business or holding meet and greets with key personnel. Andrew continues: “This allows us to become fully immersed into the organisation, giving us a real feel for the company, its people, priorities and culture”.

“We ask probing questions, whilst spending time getting to know the people behind the business to gain the truest possible reflection of the organisation.”

Building partnerships

It is clear when speaking to Andrew that Solutions Recruitment is not just a firm which sifts through CVs to find a candidate to fill a vacancy for their clients.

“Whilst we recognise that finding talent for our clients is the game we’re in, we truly believe the best way to work is by building long-term partnerships, acting more as a consultant than just a supplier; delivering value in lots of ways to each of the organisations we work with.”

Describing what this looks like, Andrew explains: “We have been fortunate to be involved in some really exciting projects over the last 12 months; training a global FTSE 100 management team on recruitment best practice, creating an organisation design program as part of a post-acquisition integration plan, market mapping in support of client diversity strategies and employer branding exercises in support of client positioning.”

“It is ingrained in our core values to provide a service which goes the extra mile. What good service looked like five years ago, just doesn’t cut it anymore. Good enough, never is. For example, we were recently asked to source salary data for a client, but rather than producing generic data, we took the time to produce targeted market reports, providing specific income data sets and labour demographics, which our client can use to help them make much more informed decisions.”

Talent war intensifies

“We’re in a perfect storm for recruitment right now, with employment levels at record highs, low unemployment and businesses recruiting for the similar skillsets, we have acute talent shortages across the board.” PwC reported in their 20th CEO survey that ‘77% of CEO’s see the availability of key skills as the biggest threat to their business’. Employers all need to think differently; Andrew explains: “We are living in a consumer centric world and the needs of the consumer are ever-changing. People no longer look for compensation alone, they want to know about values, culture, work-life balance, flexible working, CSR, environmental and sustainability policies, to name just a few.”

The Accenture employment trends survey 2014 showed that 95% of businesses ‘believe flexibility is vital or important to the competitiveness of the UK’s labour market and prospects for investment and job creation’.

Andrew adds: “As recruiters we need to provide more than just a job advert and person specification; a candidate needs to understand the core values of an organisation, just as much as an employer needs to recognise the needs of their target candidate markets.”

It is clear that people are at the core of everything Solutions Recruitment do. Andrew closes: “We need to keep investing the time to know our candidates, clients and our own people, so we can keep providing the invaluable service and results we have delivered to date.”