It’s official, growth is big news. Growth is where it’s at. Growth is the new austerity. The proof? Barack Obama at the recent G8 summit expressed his ‘absolute commitment to growth’; growth was a key area of criticism for its apparent absence in the recent Queen’s Speech; and William Hague, the UK Foreign Minster put it in fairly pragmatic terms when he suggested last week that ‘There’s only one growth strategy: work hard.’
Hence the release later this week of the heavily leaked Beecroft Report. This will be a fascinating, hugely controversial and politically divisive potential initiative which aims to fuel growth through the binning of a raft of regulation viewed as currently stifling job creation. The regulations affected include the lifting of some equality laws, putting a cap on employment tribunal payouts, reducing the mandatory consultation period from 90 days down to 30 and the earlier harmonising of TUPE transfer benefits. The thinking goes that an organisation feeling less apparently burdened with employees is more likely to take on more people.
The proposals, still at a relatively early stage, are designed to allow employers to take on staff more quickly as well as shifting the sense of employment entitlement for those in work. Whilst there are plenty of political hurdles still to be crossed, it is hugely positive to see greater employment liquidity and mobility perceived as synonymous with growth.
And although the full implications of Beecroft are still some way off, we suggest that enhanced career mobility will bring with it greater pressure and focus on an organisation’s employer brand as the resourcing market becomes more dynamic, more liquid and more competitive. At the same time, there will be more stress on an organisation’s engagement and alignment activities in the light of an employment market moving at greater pace.
As employees therefore feel they can move more easily and more efficiently from one organisation to another, the ability of an employer to communicate their brand, their purpose and their value proposition succinctly, effectively and relevantly will be of increasing importance.
It is, on the surface, somewhat counter-intuitive then to see the report earlier this month from HR recruitment organisation, Ortus, which suggested that just 5 out of 595 (or less than 1% of) board members from FTSE 50 companies were from an HR background. As TMP’s own considerable exposure to employer branding has demonstrated, the C-suite’s interest in and endorsement of this field is growing at pace. If we are to embrace growth, it appears that the human resources community has both a massive opportunity, as well as responsibility, to drive the branding and engagement-related initiatives which are likely to fall out of the potentially game-changing recommendations of Beecroft. Although the story last week of Scott Thompson, fired from his role as Yahoo CEO for an apparent CV economy with the truth, emphasises the importance of rigour and process, those organisations with the methodologies, approach and brand which play to pace and dynamism are likely to be the chief beneficiaries of a resourcing playing field freed of much red tape and caution.
With many established western economies, throughout Europe as well as across the Atlantic, desperate for growth (as well as economic prudence), it is hugely stimulating to see that employer branding, through the freedoms hinted at through Beecroft, can play a real role in liberalising employment marketplaces and rewarding those organisations that invest effectively and successfully in employer branding and engagement strategies.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 