This rise of 6.6% was announced alongside a reform of the Universal Credit taper, cutting the rate by 8% to 55% – set to come into effect “within weeks”.

Alongside this, Sunak announced that the new Scale Up Visa is set to “make it quicker and easier for the fast growing businesses to bring in highly skilled individuals”.

He wants to make the UK talent market “the most competitive in the world” and a “science and technology superstar”.

But, does this address the issues businesses are facing today?

Deputy CEO of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation Kate Shoesmith said: “The Chancellor said today was about preparing for a new economy.

“To really deliver on that, what we need to see from the government is a long-term, strategic vision for the whole UK workforce.

“Businesses up and down the country are battling labour and skills shortages. They need the right levers to enable the right type of investment in workforce development and growth – only that growth can make wage rises sustainable and improve the public finances long-term.

“Today’s pledge for more spending on skills is a step in the right direction – but what is long overdue is a revolution in how we deliver training and skills.”

Organisations should now prepare their payroll teams to manage the changes to take-home pay and update any associated policies, so staff are aware of the new pay rates as the new minimum wage comes into play.

Kate Palmer, HR advice and consultancy director at Peninsula, said: “These changes represent an increase of 6.6% the third-highest annual rise since the financial crash in 2008.

”It’s expected that a similar increase will be applied across payments associated with family-friendly leave, for example, maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, and parental bereavement pay.

“The increase will likely also be in place for statutory sick pay entitlements; however, this may mean a subsequent rise to the lower earnings limit, which employees must meet to be eligible for most statutory payments.

“This increase in demand on payroll and HR teams may mean that organisations will have to recruit additional people, so it could also be beneficial to review recruitment strategies now, to ensure there are sufficient staffing resources in place.”

The challenge for many, especially in talent acquisition, is one of talent supply rather than lack of investment.

Paul Newnes, head of innovation at Talent Works, said: “These initiatives are likely to be good news in the medium term and will help to build a better pipeline of talent – but businesses aren’t looking that far ahead at the moment.

“Schemes like these will take at least five years to have a tangible effect.

“Today’s budget is too reactive and slow moving – businesses across the country are being strangled by a lack of talent.

“The problem is not investment, it’s resourcing, and the budget doesn’t address that.

“Any new talent visa schemes need to avoid the usual Kafkaesque processes if they are to be at all effective in attracting overseas talent into the UK.”

In the survey of 3,000 UK employees by Purple CV also found the concerns were highest in the West Midlands (50%) and London (48%) but lowest in Scotland (31%)

Andrew Arkley, owner of PurpleCV.co.uk, said: “Though it may appear inclusive for companies to introduce hybrid workplace models, it should be taken into account the various ways in which the pandemic has affected employees – as well as their families – both mentally and in their daily lives.

“Ideally, workplaces should be diverse and inclusive across all fields, therefore bias should not exist between employees.”

The CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, analysed this year’s gender pay gap data for Great Britain, finding the number of organisations reporting their figures is down 11%.

The figures also show that around 65% of companies provide a URL to information on their gender pay gap, suggesting that over a third do not provide any information behind the gender pay figures.

Charles Cotton, senior policy adviser for reward and recognition at the CIPD, said: “It’s disappointing that the number of organisations reporting their gender pay gap has fallen.

“We encourage those who haven’t yet reported to do so as soon as possible, otherwise they risk enforcement action and possible damage to their reputation.

“Evidence suggests that economically, women have been adversely and disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and now is not the time to be taking the foot off the pedal when it comes to equality in the workplace.

Currently, 6% of the UK workforce are already on their notice period, while a further 26% are actively job hunting as the labour market kicks into gear and workers plan their next career move.

The research, from Totaljobs, shows not only an increase in people starting new jobs in the months ahead but an expected rise in industry-hopping, with 75% of jobseekers reporting they are more likely to consider working in a different industry following Covid-19.

For those that already switched industries during the last year, less than one in five (18%) plan to move back to their previous industry.

Totaljobs CEO, Jon Wilson, said: “With Covid-19 changing our day-to-day working lives, people are increasingly searching for work-life balance, flexibility or simply for a job they can get more satisfaction out of, and they’ll look to other industries to find it.

“With a record number of job vacancies this summer, many industries who had to hit pause on their hiring in the height of the pandemic are now experiencing labour shortages, and these are likely to continue in the coming months.”

The latest Business Confidence Survey from CGA and Fourth found that one in six (16%) hospitality jobs currently lie vacant.

Fewer than one in five (18%) hospitality leaders feel confident about their recruitment and retention over the next 12 months – down from 67% who felt confident during the last round of research only three months ago.

Three in five (59%) are now anticipate hiring staff at a greater rate than usual this year – up by 15% compared to the last survey.

Labour has been further hit by absences, with leaders reporting that an average of 6% of staff are currently in isolation and unable to work.

Karl Chessell, CGA’s director – hospitality operators and food. “These figures illustrate the full scale of hospitality’s recruitment and retention crisis.

“Thousands of businesses are now critically short of staff, while many of those who have sufficient labour face a fight to keep hold of it.

“Gaps at front and back of house and fast-rising wage costs threaten to derail the industry’s recovery, and sustained, targeted government support is now urgently needed to tackle the problem.

The shortage of staff is prompting hospitality leaders to step up efforts to attract and keep hold of staff.

Three quarters say they have offered better pay (76%) and stepped up their levels of communication (75%) as part of their retention strategies, while two thirds have tried to support staff more with their wellbeing and mental health (66%).

The use of pay as a retention tool is rapidly inflating wage bills across the hospitality sector, which already faces mounting food, drink, supply and utility costs.

Leaders who have increased pay have done so by an average of 11% for current staff, and by 13% for newly hired team members.

Sebastien Sepierre, managing director, Fourth, said: “Hospitality is nothing without people and the sector is in a desperate battle to find the staff it needs to rebuild after a devastating 18 months.

“With the right business landscape, hospitality has the potential to drive the UK’s economic recovery.

“But the current operational environment is extremely tough and these results lay bare the workforce challenges senior leaders must solve, especially in light of the key festive trading period on the horizon.”

Specifically, mental health wellbeing represents one of the largest reasons to identify as disabled in the UK.

With levels of anxiety increasing during the pandemic, this year’s World Mental Health Day on 10 October may have been more important than ever. Recent figures from Mind Cymru revealed that nearly two in three adults believe their mental health and wellbeing has got worse since the first national lockdown in March 2020.

Hidden conditions such as mental well-being are generally misunderstood in the workplace, remote working has made it more difficult to identify mental well-being amongst colleagues, ensuring they are sufficiently supported.

For many, the colleagues we once saw on an everyday basis have been replaced by 2D versions of themselves that we only interact with through a computer screen.

It’s incredibly easy to forget that, while we all might be struggling, those with existing mental health conditions are finding those issues exacerbated and more difficult to deal with.

This lack of everyday, face-to-face contact is also contributing to managers being unaware of whether – and how – their staff are struggling.

Difficulties in reading body language via a computer screen, increasing work pressures and less ‘informal’ time spent speaking to staff means it is becoming increasingly difficult for employers to identify and appropriately support those employees who are not coping.

Ensure that provisions and practices are in place

So, it is crucial managers recognise the importance of mental health in the workplace and understand how to best support an employee struggling with their mental health.

I would say the most positive step an employer could make is to ensure that provisions and practices are in place to improve the mental health and wellbeing of all employees.

Employers have a duty of care for their staff; they are responsible for understanding what causes stress and anxiety within their teams.

Pro-actively limiting these triggers or making reasonable adjustments in the workplace can ensure staff can do their jobs effectively

When it comes to promoting good well-being in work and supporting colleagues with mental health conditions and other hidden impairments in the workplace, certain reasonable adjustments can make the world of difference.

For instance, developing a supportive culture, providing staff with opportunities to discuss their well-being in an environment within which they feel comfortable doing so and having policies or practices in place that reflect this can help ensure that mental health conditions and other hidden impairments are not perceived as a failure.

Additional barrier to success

It’s instead an additional barrier to success that the employer and employee need to work together to overcome.

To remove those barriers for me, open conversation was key as well as the feeling of being heard.

The way employers communicate with staff is a key factor in shaping how employees respond when they’re experiencing stress and poor mental health.

Managers should cultivate open and supportive relationships with their employees by establishing regular, informal ‘check-ins’, when working remotely.

Celebrating small achievements is especially important in the current climate.

Face-to-face gestures

When working in the office, we need to ensure we’re engaging in casual celebrations or gestures, like making a colleague a cup of tea after a difficult meeting.

 With many of us now sitting behind a screen, we’re slipping into a culture of isolation, working alone and not having that face-to-face time to voice appreciation for others.

It’s important that we replicate face-to-face gestures of encouragement online, such as using the awards feature on Teams to let a colleague know they’ve done a good job, or dropping them a line to ensure they know they’re appreciated.

The pandemic has also seen the boundaries between professional and personal life blur. In general, many workers have experienced higher workloads due to furloughed staff members as well as less social opportunities outside of work due to COVID-19 restrictions.

This has led to many of us working longer hours and socialising less outside of work, leaving us feeling stressed.

Those working from home have been operating out of their personal space which can make it difficult to establish a clear line between work and home life.

Without the ritual of leaving a place of work or having the physical distance between home and the office, it’s increasingly hard to switch off.

Staff well-being and work-life balance is a priority

For those who have been working in face-to-face environments, stresses around safety and wellbeing have also become heightened during the pandemic, with front line key worker staff across many sectors feeling the strain.

It is, in my opinion, important for employers to demonstrate that staff well-being and work-life balance is a priority.

Whether that be clarifying it is understood people may not be online when emails are sent in the evening or simply promoting this message is by encouraging your team to take short breaks throughout the day.

It can be a five minute quiz or chat with a coffee, taking five minutes away from your desk can help raise morale and de-stress.

Adjusting to the impacts of Covid-19 personally and professionally has brought immense pressure and the need to “push through”.

Therefore I believe this is the perfect time for employers and managers to be discussing well-being with their employees.

Championing staff to voice their concerns and finding constructive solutions has never been more necessary.

It’s important to be aware of the support available to ensure you’re not on your own.

Research shows employees are putting in an average 9 hours of unpaid overtime per week.

Despite the WHO revealing the impact of overworking can lead to exhaustion and burnout, why do many of us managing others still lead in this counterproductive way?

Romanticising ‘overwork’

There are many socio-economic factors associated with ‘overworking’, deeply ingrained in our workplace culture.

Of course, there are lots of practical factors connected to overworking and taking on as many tasks as possible that are thrown our way. Many, simply work long hours to keep their jobs, pay off debt, or so they’re first in line for that next step up the corporate ladder.

However, for many that adopt a culture of long, intense work hours, there’s a performative element involved. Overwork is often seen as a status symbol, signalling the pathway towards employee success. Businesses may overvalue those who undervalue work-life balance.

Whether we define this success by our job title, an ability to live a certain lifestyle, or even exhaustion that can be presented like an achievement award, the ‘romanisations’ of overworking remains prevalent.

Overworking also depends on the industry type and role you are in. For example, people in jobs geared towards helping others, like line managers, tend to work longer hours that can result in physical and emotional exhaustion.

The COVID culture

The COVID culture has not just seen employees overworking, but their managers and those above them too, as the pandemic has exacerbated negative work behaviours across all work hierarchies.

While working from home has its perks, it also means there is technology all around you 24-hours a day. There is not that clear delineation anymore between being at work in the working environment and being away from it at home

Individuals feel they are expected to be ‘always on’, and as a result, overwork. This is also associated with unhealthy behaviours including ‘bedmin’, where employees take their devices to bed with them and work until they fall asleep and then when they awake.

Economic instability also increased during this period, which drives many businesses to say, ‘we need to get more done for less’.

Sadly, mass redundancies and furlough schemes meant bigger workloads, tighter deadlines, and greater fears about job security. Subsequently, managers took on a lot of increased strain as they took on additional work of newly missing team members.

‘Putting your own life jacket on, before helping others’

The difficulty with overworking is that it can be a top-down issue. If overworking is ‘modelled’ from the top, then it will be ‘echoed’ below. As such it and can only be addressed by a fundamental shift at management levels.

One of the big concerns here is that many in leadership positions have convinced themselves there’s no problem with it.  As a result, overworking and associated health issues spread to become a company-wide epidemic

Managers need to recognise that, not only they themselves risk burn-out and poor mental and physical health if they continue to overwork, but so do their teams.

What’s more, it’s not helping companies either. Workers who are experiencing an imbalanced state of well-being are 33 per cent more likely to want to seek a new job soon. In contrast, when an employee experiences a high level of well-being, this drops to 8 per cent.

Considering such findings, managers need to look at ways to protect their mental health and wellbeing, which can be mirrored to their teams, encouraging others to follow suit.

Starting strategies

Start small. Take those breaks. Make sure you’re taking all your annual leave, and delineate some time where devices are turned off, and you don’t look at them. Everyone needs some clear headspace and others need to know this is a company-wide expectation.

If you, as a manager, feel stressed, it is likely others on your team will feel the same. In fact, it’s likely their anxieties will be heightened. Take some time to assess the current working habits of those around you. Get a temperature check on how they feel about their workloads by running a few short, informal meetings, either online or in-person, so teams don’t feel further stressed.

There are unexpected benefits to caring for employees who feel shackled to their work. A team member will be loyal to you, as a manager, if you spot notice signs of distress or overwork and you encourage them to take that time out.

Managing mental wellbeing

Leading by example is all well and good, if you feel confident in doing so. If not, ask about the possibility of additional training like Mental Health Awareness, to help you notice the tell-tale signs of possible mental health issues in yourself and other team members.

You also need to be aware of the support offerings provided by your workplace. Liaising with HR and ensuring policies have mental health perspectives is important.

Effective workplace treatment combines physical offerings like private health assessments, onsite or subsidised gym memberships, travel offers with emotional wellbeing support.

Company offerings like employee assistance programmes (EAPs) and cognitive behavioural therapy may be something to discuss as a permanent investment. For example, the presence of an emotional wellbeing therapist in the workplace communicates clearly that conversations about mental health are welcome and expected.

Digital or virtual therapy solutions can be effective too. Remember, for many people, the notion of sharing a vulnerability or admitting a problem, is a barrier in itself. However, some research suggests counselling conducted online is as effective as face-to-face sessions.

During 2020 Nuffield Health therapists delivered 3.7 million minutes of therapy remotely with outcomes comparative to therapy delivered face to face.

Physical health

It’s important physical health is not overlooked in workplaces where there are high stress levels and a culture of long work hours.

Evidence suggests that executives who look after their physical health are more effective leaders. Regular exercise increases the volume of certain brain regions—in particular, the hippocampus – which increases the brain’s ability to process new information.

This process creates more ‘space’ in the brain, helping individuals to subconsciously process and manage negative behaviours and habits caused by stress and anxiety.

It makes sense. The less anxious you are and the better you are at reacting to the circumstances around you, the better you’ll work under pressure.

Managers should look for gaps in their routines where they could replace something sedentary with exercise. Why not try shaking up work routines with activities by organising walking work meetings? These can make gatherings more efficient as employees are less like to become lethargic during a brisk walk.

As restrictions begin to lift, take advantage of any offerings from your company like discounted or free memberships to local gyms, classes or taking part in a sponsored workplace group in a charity event like a fundraising run. Encourage people to join you, to increase physical activity across your teams.

For those working from home, continue to offer level of flexibility for when people exercise. This is so employees feel comfortable exercising when it is convenient for them. It’s important those who began a fitness routine at home do not stop because they feel guilty working out when others are in the office.

But one thing stood out for me – the issues around being older at work were noticeable by their absence in the conversation.

Research findings from the recent 55/Redefined report ‘Shut out, forced out and overlooked’ revealed that over-55s want to work and progress, but feel disregarded when it comes to their career in later life.

In fact, the majority (68%) of over-55s feel the job market is closed to them, despite one in four wanting to work into their 80s.

While more than half (51%) of HR and business leaders monitor age diversity within their workforce, it’s clear that there is still a disconnect between employers’ efforts and employees’ perception of age in the workplace.

Employers EDI policies are leaving age behind

The study highlights several of these disparities, including that a third (30%) of employers were ‘very motivated’ to recruit 55-75-year-olds, yet a large majority of retirees (24%) said they felt forced to retire before they wanted to.

Combining this with the fact that, of urrently employed over-55s, 64% are not getting leadership training and a third have ‘lost interest in their job due to lack of development opportunities’, we can assume employers’ collective diversity and inclusion efforts to date are leaving behind age.

To combat this, it’s critical employers place age at the heart of their HR practices alongside gender, race and other diversity initiatives.

So where does the problem lie?

As hard as it may be to hear, our research reveals that age discrimination is being perpetuated by the people that control HR policy and standards.

This could be an unintended consequence of focusing exclusively on other protected diversity and inclusion characteristics.

But by 2050, the under-55 working-age population will have shrunk by around 20% in Western countries.

Pair this with the impact of the pandemic, which is disproportionately and adversely affecting older individuals, and employers can expect a serious shortfall in the workforce within our lifetimes.

The population of over-60s in the same timeframe will grow by 40% – forward-thinking firms that tackle ageism and capitalise on the value of older workers now will have an advantage over competitors.

How can HR leaders tackle ageism in the workplace?

Despite the report revealing the majority of businesses may need to take action to create a more inclusive environment for older workers, 28% of the 200 employers surveyed said that staff over the age of 55 ‘are not thought of any differently to younger members of staff.

For companies seeking guidance, however, there are things that HR leaders can do to attract and retain older workers:

1. Be ‘bias active’: Understand the level of bias that exists already in your organisation against age and deliver training and insight while acting to address misplaced stereotypes or the unintended consequences of focusing on other diversity areas.
2. Flex appeal: Encourage people to stay in the workforce for longer by creating new flexible roles that appeal to this over-55 talent pool. These could be permanent roles at three or four days per week, through to rehiring retired professionals for key periods of the year on flexible contracts.
3. The will to skill: Invest in technical training and reskilling of this age group including current and new employees. Create schemes targeting this age group or hire cohorts of over-55s for in-demand roles that require technical or industry training.
4. Change tack: Stop hiring on previous experience and technical fit, instead focusing on soft skills, behaviour, motivation, and cultural fit criteria. Support hiring managers to make this transition by creating new ways of recruiting and assessing talent that help encourage inclusivity for all.
5. Engage the age: Get to know your existing over-55 workforce and be proactive in asking them what they want and how best you can support them to remain engaged in work for longer.

Lyndsey Simpson is the founder and CEO of 55/Redefined

The furlough scheme was without modern precedent in the UK. Although it had its critics, it has appeared to succeed in preventing, or at least slowing down, redundancies since the beginning of the pandemic.

Charlie Thompson, Employment Partner at Stewarts, the UK’s largest litigation-only law firm, offers expert insight into the final end of the furlough scheme and what impact this is set to have on employment and redundancies.

Will the furlough scheme have an enduring impact, and what might happen next?

Redundancies

There is likely to be a further wave of redundancies.

In recent months, redundancy figures have been low. Indeed, in August 2021, they were at their lowest level in seven years. This is likely to be because many employers had already made large scale redundancies in the past 18 months and had no appetite to do a fresh round of morale-sapping job cuts if they could possibly avoid it.

When the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unveiled the furlough scheme last March, he said it would be open for an initial three months. Since then, it has been repeatedly extended, and the cost to employers of keeping staff on furlough has incrementally increased. Against that backdrop, many employers contemplating job cuts will have carried out their redundancy exercises already.

However, the number of redundancies will surely increase when the furlough scheme ends.

Recent provisional figures show 1.6 million furloughed employments on 31st July 2021, and the figures for August 2021 are expected also to be low. These latest figures are significantly lower than the peak of 8.9 million on 8th May 2020 but nevertheless represents a sizeable group of the working population, with a particularly high uptake in:

• Construction
• Manufacturing
• Transportation
• Storage

With the furlough scheme coming to an end, some employers face the choice between bringing their furloughed staff back in, potentially to do very little work, or to make them redundant.

Furthermore, despite the success of the vaccination programme and the relaxation of restrictions, many businesses will continue to be affected by the pandemic, logistical and travel problems, and the harsh economic conditions that will outlast the furlough scheme.

At the end of September 2021, not only does the furlough scheme end, but creditors will be free to seek orders to wind up debtors who owe them money. Some employers will be compelled to make redundancies to stay afloat, whereas others will go out of business altogether, with job losses inevitably following.

Any employer conducting a redundancy consultation should not be complacent that the end of the furlough scheme makes the exercise simpler.

Employees may now point to the success of the furlough scheme in avoiding redundancies and, while recognising that the scheme is at an end, propose lay-off or short-term working (see below) to avoid redundancy.

Employers will need to consider these proposals carefully.

In practice, the value of most unfair dismissal claims arising from redundancy will be heavily influenced by the dismissed employee’s ability to secure another role. The more likely an employee is to secure another role quickly, the less it is worth their while bringing a claim.

According to the latest labour market overview from the ONS, the number of payroll employees is now returning to pre-pandemic levels and the number of job vacancies is above 1 million, the highest since records began.

However, employers should not assume that this means that the risk of claims is low. The surge in vacancies will not be evenly distributed across the economy. Employees made redundant by companies because of the furlough scheme’s closure are likely to find that companies in the same sector are not going on a recruitment spree.

Flexible furlough leading to more zero-hours contracts and ‘lay off’/’short-time working’ and freelancing

In July 2020, HM Treasury introduced the concept of ‘flexible furlough’. This allowed employers to bring furloughed employees back to work on a part-time basis and give the employer flexibility to decide working hours and days. Employers could also re-furlough employees who had come back to work.

There will be employers that have enjoyed the ability to determine staff hours according to fluctuations in activity (and not just in the gig economy sectors).

They may also be concerned that trading conditions will continue to be difficult from 1st October 2021 onwards.

Those businesses may revisit their attitude towards zero-hours contracts, which provide the employer with similar flexibility.

Employers will also seek to sell the benefits of such contracts to candidates by showing that they also give the employee flexibility. The term ‘zero hours contract’ is unlikely to be used by those employers because of the term’s negative connotations. They are likely to use more neutral terms, such as referring to zero hours employees as ‘bank staff’.

Another phenomenon we may see is the increase of ‘lay off’ and ‘short-time working’ provisions in employment contracts. Employment contracts can lawfully contain provisions entitling the employer to either provide no work (and no pay) or less work (and less pay) for a period while keeping the employment alive.

We may also see more businesses engaging individuals as freelancers or independent contractors, rather than as employees.

A commonly misunderstood feature of the widely-reported gig economy cases, such as Uber, is that although the judicial trend is firmly in favour of giving individual employment rights, none of those high profile decisions has gone as far as providing protection against unfair dismissal.

Employers who are scarred by recent redundancy exercises may prefer to lessen the risk of conducting further redundancies by engaging independent contractors instead, in the belief that they can hire and fire them at will.

So, what if the word is in your actual job title? Meet Alison Keeling, Director of Disruption for one of the UK’s leading ATS providers Jobtrain.

In the corporate sphere this position is often known as Chief Disruption Officer (or CDO) and they are becoming a more frequent sight, but what does it take and what are the outcomes?

We spoke to Alison about her daily role and the impact she’s seen in asking the questions everyone else is afraid to ask.

The HR World (HRW): Alison, tell us a bit about your background first – how did you start out in your career?

Alison Keeling (AK): I started life as a recruiter and went on to become a head-hunter. My husband and I went on to complete an MBO to take over a successful headhunting business working with some interesting big clients like Kellogg’s and SmithKline Beecham (as it was then). They were undertaking serious graduate recruitment, which was challenging and at times overpowering. Back then there were no mobile phones, no wide-spread use of the internet, so we decided to create a piece of technology to help. Jobtrain was born.

HRW: How did you go from being founder to Director of Disruption?

AK: I was still working as a head-hunter and we were all out running the business, too, which became exhausting. Chris, my husband and business partner, said, ‘Look just step away”, so we wound that business down to focus purely on Jobtrain. I moved into the side-lines a bit, becoming a natural observer of what was going on. The ‘trouble’ is that my mantra is ‘can I just ask’? so I was probably a bit of a natural disruptor from the beginning. I have the perspective of wondering, ‘if I were a client, what would I be looking for?’, ‘How would this help me?’ So, there was that sounding board to begin with. And then, as Jobtrain started to get bigger, my sounding board got larger we made the role formal.

HRW: So, what exactly do you do in your role?

AK: It is a good question! I don’t have any functional responsibility but cover a lot of ground. I’m as likely to disrupt a development team as I am the marketing team or customer services. The key thing is really listening as an independent observer. I’ll hear something and just go in and sometimes say, how’s it going? What’s happening? What’s good? What’s bad? How’s that? This then produces ideas and facilitates discussion that leads to innovation and solutions.

HRW: Did you find any challenges to the position when it first came about?

AK: Well, people did potentially think I was there to criticise at first. It can be quite threatening when someone comes into your professional space and studies what you are doing then asks why! There are significant issues with what I see as ‘functional silos’ where what you hear is that people are doing things in a specific way because that is what has always just been done – this is the worst thing I think you can hear in a business ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ kind of mentality. So, we had to set some cultural values around it and actually just being consistent, kind and open with people meant that me being around asking questions became quite normal – which then becomes part of our business mindset. We are incredibly lucky at Jobtrain to have had people who have been with us for a long time, so me being one of the founders also meant I had some leverage in terms of trust and positioning. I think it would be harder for someone who was not senior to be in this role.

HRW: Do you think there is also a ‘type’ of person that suits this role?

AK: Yes, definitely. Being a head-hunter is basically being super inquisitive, asking why? What? Who? How? And you develop that as a mindset not just in work but in life. I read weird and wonderful things so if you were to look at the search function on my Google account, I’ve got a pretty odd history of things that I look at. As my role in Jobtrain evolved, I would be the one sitting in the management meetings and increasingly asking questions. It became obvious that having someone in the room holding a mirror up was going to be useful. Being passionate is important because sometimes you need to be strong. While I think I am easy going and approachable, if I’m passionate about something, I’m like a lioness. I will scrap for it.

HRW: What are the main outcomes you’ve seen from having a Director of Disruption in your business?

AK: The main things have been being able to set our teams free from any preconceptions and develop innovative solutions for our clients. But it has made our business more robust. This means we communicate with more articulation and passion with our clients and can become an extension of their business. They know we are on this journey and that our thinking is all about how do we make their lives better? What problems are we really solving for them? A core outcome of this has gone on to create a data report and education programme around how to read the information they are being given from our system. Called Talent Intelligence it’s already creating huge savings and insights for our clients and is now a major new pillar of our business.

Alison’s top five tips to enable safe and helpful disruption!

1. Anyone in my position cannot be operational and in the deep woods of ‘doing’. You need to be able to see further afield. To me, what is blindingly obvious can be for the team over the horizon and three counties away.
2. Getting back to basics is always a good place to start – it is incredibly easy to go down a path when opportunities arise, but you end up not where you want to be.
3. The person ‘doing’ the disruption activities needs to have authority in the organisation – a sort of ‘minister without portfolio’.
4. Think about the individual as well as the team and ask ‘how can I unlock their potential?’
5. And finally, develop a mindset that says ‘don’t just be good, be brilliant’. Otherwise, why would you bother in the first place?