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Movers and Shakers – The Headlines from December

Another year over, and what a year it has been!

While the world insisted that we should try turning 2016 off and on again, it hasn’t all been bad news, Brexit and celebrity deaths.

For the transport and infrastructure sectors we have seen some major progress. Heathrow airport finally received the government’s backing to build a third runway, Hinkley Point C was given the green light and contracts for the enabling works on the first phase of High Speed 2 have been awarded. This is all amongst countless other projects taking shape across the country.

As we all get back to work after too many mince pies, let’s take a look at the movers and shakers from December:-

Abellio
Mike Kean Abellio UK Rail Development Director has been appointed Deputy MD for Abellio Greater Anglia. Julian Edwards MD Finance & Commercial has taken on the UK Rail Development remit.

Black & Veatch
Have appointed Stuart Alexander as UK Engineering Director for Design & Build. He joins them from Jacobs where he was Divisional Director.

Cappagh Browne
Lawrence Summers, Managing Director has announced that he will be leaving to re-join Morrison Utility Services. He will immediately go on secondment to the Thames Water Infrastructure Alliance to take on the role of Chief Operating Officer.

TRL
Matt Sercombe has joined TRL as Infrastructure Director. Matt was previously Head of Tunnels and structures at Transport for London.

TfL
Phil Young who has been Head of Online with TfL for the past 5 years has announced he will be leaving in the coming months.

CAF
Paul Woolley leaves from his position as Bid Director to join Vossloh Kiepe as Sales & Marketing Director.

WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff
James Llewellyn has joined as a Technical Director in the Birmingham-based development team office. He was a senior managing consultant with Atkins

Amec Foster Wheeler
Chris Hanley has been joined the consultant as Technical Director – transport planning. He was a Senior Technical Leader at Atkins.

Jacobs
Stuart Freeman has been appointed Director of Operations at Jacobs. He previously held the position of Divisional Director.

SYSTRA
Martin Higgitt moves internally to take on the position of Market Director – Sustainable Travel and Transport. He previously held the position of Associate Director in JMP (who were acquired last year by Systra).

c2c
Steve Knights has taken on the position of Head of Marketing at c2c, he moves internally from National Express where he was Head of Marketing, UK Bus.

Are you ready for 2017?

Now that the New Year is upon us, many of our clients are asking to meet us to discuss resourcing plans for key hires in 2017. As you can see, not many people took on new positions last month, we expect this will all change in January.

To arrange a call or meeting with us please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

Grayling – On the right track or off the rails?

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling’s plan to create a new rail delivery body is a very interesting development – and the results it achieves will be even more intriguing.

Grayling announced last week that he would establish a body called East West Rail to take forward the long-awaited Oxford to Cambridge project.

His cabinet colleague chancellor Philip Hammond pledged more than £100 million in last month’s Autumn Statement for the development of the rail line between the two famous university towns via Bedford and Bicester.

The overall project involves upgrading and rebuilding sections of track that are in various states at present. It is a major task and one ministers clearly believe needs fresh input.

Grayling said he wanted to bring “new skills” to the railway upgrade challenge, which does not necessarily say a great deal about the esteem with which Network Rail is held by the government.

Bringing in new faces to tackle the project is a laudable aim but one that may be difficult in practice, especially as Grayling wants East West Rail to “accelerate” the planning process for the route.

“I am going to establish East West Rail as a new and separate organisation, to accelerate the permissions needed to reopen the route, and to secure private sector involvement to design, build and operate the route as an integrated organisation,” he announced to Parliament.

Being judged on the speed by which the project gets underway means former Chiltern Rail MD Rob Brighouse will have a major challenge on his hands when he becomes Chair of East West Rail in the New Year.

Traditionally you would expect new organisations to take longer to get going on a project than existing bodies that are already set up to go. They will need to get key people on board quickly, if the Oxford to Cambridge scheme is to get moving.

How easy will it be to both move quickly and bring in new skills and top talent though?

If there is clarity on the new business’ responsibilities it could be an attractive company for progressive individuals. To some extent, people are likely to come from Network Rail itself as well as from key consultants working for the infrastructure operator, or client organisations in other infrastructure sectors. It could be attractive to those looking for something different to the norm.

Whether East West Rail can bring a team together to get the project moving swiftly and efficiently and earn a reputation as strong as the universities in the towns their project will link? If so then we could see the model repeated elsewhere. I’m sure the country will be watching with interest, I know I will be.

Elsewhere in Grayling’s statement to Parliament, the transport secretary said he would progress with greater vertical integration in the rail sector, last recommended in the McNulty report in 2011.

“In order for all those involved to be incentivised to deliver the best possible service for the passenger, I expect the new franchises – starting with South Eastern and East Midlands – to have integrated operating teams between train services and infrastructure,” said Grayling.

“We will continue to develop the model for greater alignment of track and train as further franchises are renewed – including the option of joint ventures.”

Getting infrastructure and service operators to work more effectively together has long been an ambition of governments, but I’m doubtful if this model will realise that aim.

As long at the operating franchises are only given 10-year or shorter contracts, they won’t be incentivised to invest in the long-term state of the railways. And as Network Rail is a public body, it won’t have the profit of the operating firms as a priority.

You can send people on as many collaboration workshops as you like, but if you don’t address the fundamental differences in their organisations motivations, you won’t see true partnerships.

In my opinion, the only ways to get those who look after the infrastructure and those who run the trains on the same page are to align incentives by giving operators 20-year-plus franchises or to create wholly new bodies with full responsibility for both elements of the railway.

Implementing either of these measures would be bold. But it could ultimately lead to more effective investment in Britain’s railways.

Are you ready for 2017?

Many of our clients are asking to meet us pre-Christmas and early January regarding resourcing plans for key hires in 2017.

To arrange a call or meeting with us please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

Highway to Nowhere?

The Chancellor recently announced £1.3bn for improving Britain’s roads and local transport systems.

Phil Hammond used his first Autumn Statement to show his intentions of channelling funding into the highways sector. His goal being to ease congestion and get an economic bang for his buck. This is very laudable on paper – but how can it possibly work in practice?

The practicalities are that the highways sector has shrunk significantly in recent years.

While billions have been allocated for rail schemes such as Crossrail and High Speed 2, Britain’s network of driving tarmac has been left to develop traffic jams and potholes.

Local authorities warned in October that it would take £12bn and 14 years to bring roads up to scratch – which makes the chancellor’s autumn statement pledge look as significant as a single traffic cone on the M6.

England’s councils are budgeted to spend £4.4bn on ‘highways and transport services’ in 2016/17 – around half what they spent in 2008.

Meanwhile annual spending on major projects on Britain’s motorways and A roads has rarely gone above £1bn in the past 20 years, despite the figure being closer to £2bn in the early 90s.

Yet the Road Investment Strategy outlines plans for £15bn to be spent on 100 capital projects on the strategic network between 2015 and 2020.

With Hammond’s £1.1bn by 2021 to tackle congestion and upgrade roads and transport services, alongside £220m for pinch points on strategic roads, it is clear that ministers want to see a huge acceleration of highways construction work.

Such a step change is never easy but is made more manageable if there is a clear pipeline, and if other infrastructure sectors due to complete major projects and release shovel-ready workers on to the market.

I’m not just referring to the skilled trades people required to carry out the nuts and bolts of a project – critical though these clearly are. But delivering an increased workload in the pioneering, cost-effective, safety-driven way everyone wants to see requires experienced, qualified senior leaders. And they are not easy to come by at the moment.

The roads sector has shrunk and many of the people who were working in roads in the early 90s, when the Stone Roses were in the charts and capital spending was up around the £2bn-per-year mark, have long since moved on.

Tempting people back from other sectors, or from roads schemes abroad – or even drawing in new talent in the same way – takes more than just a speech in Parliament.

These top people require exciting, flagship projects to draw them in, and unfortunately these remain in greater abundance outside, the roads sector. Hinkley Point, High Speed 2 and Heathrow are just three of the glamorous schemes that will be competing with jobs to add lanes to local ring roads.

It’s not as though other sectors are going to become quieter. Crossrail is still underway and High Speed 2 is set to begin construction this Parliament. Hinkley Point has been given the green light, and other nuclear projects are expected to follow. Several airports have spending plans – and Heathrow is set to build a third runway. Water investment is also strong through AMP6.

So what can the government do? Well it can throw silly money at the roads sector, and attract people with massive salary hikes, but this is unthinkable at a time when Highways England has been created to drive value from construction works, and infrastructure spending justification is all about return on investment.

Another option is to use its lack of mega-projects to its advantage by trying to get schemes on site as quickly as possible. Planning systems are never easy to negotiate but it must be easier to get local traffic schemes approved than a new nuclear power station, a runway on the edge of London or a North-to-South railway.

By getting cash out of ministers’ mouths and off graphs in documents into real projects on the ground quickly, the government has a chance to get in ahead of some of the other, potentially stronger, possibly more glamorous sectors.

However, it must be remembered that speed of delivery has not necessarily been a strong point of UK governments when it comes to road spending.

In reality, clients, consultants, contractors and suppliers face an uphill task getting hold of first the money and then – critically – the people to deliver the step change in roads projects that the government is promising.

Perhaps there is a tacit admission of the difficulties the sector faces in the fact that Highways England expects only 40 of the 100 projects outlined in the Roads Investment Strategy to start before the final year of the 2015-2020 period.

Although this might seem to buy the government and the industry time, hoping for 60 project starts in the final year is, to my mind, unrealistic in the extreme.

A more deliverable, believable and beneficial outcome could be reached with better engagement with industry and a more realistic plan. The supply chain can then set about trying to secure the right people to deliver it.

Are you ready for 2017?

Many of our clients are asking to meet us pre-Christmas and early January regarding resourcing plans for key hires in 2017.

To arrange a call or meeting with us please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

Movers and Shakers – The Headlines from November

November has been an eventful month around the world. The autumn statement has been revealed suggesting that investment in infrastructure is still a priority for Philip Hammond, Storm Angus wreaked havoc across the nation and America voted to put Donald Trump in the Whitehouse.

But what’s been happening in our industries?

As we move into December, we’ve rounded up last month’s movers and shakers –

Transport:

HS2

Have appointed Roy Hill as Interim Chief Executive (seconded from CH2M), replacing Simon Kirby who is leaving at the end of the year to become Chief Operating Officer of Rolls Royce.

Amey

Has appointed ex-Eurostar director Andy Slater as Business Director for the firm’s metro and light rail division.

Mouchel

Have appointed Mark Fell as Divisional Manager (ITS) for the South East and London, joining from Transport & Travel Research where he was Divisional Manager for sustainable mobility.

SWECO

Faiz Nassiri has joined SWECO as Technical Director to help grow its modelling business. He was Divisional Director – transport modelling at Jacobs.

MHC Traffic Ltd

Have recruited Costi Rentzos as a Director. He moves from SYSTRA, where he was Director for London and the South of England since 2007.

Monarch

Have promoted Head of Digital and Marketing Ian Chambers to the role of Chief Commercial Officer with immediate effect. He replaces Adrian Tighe.

SDG

Michael Colella joins SDG as a Consultant from his position at TfL where he was an Associate Director and Ricardo Bobisse has been appointed as an Associate of Urban Design from PLP.

Heathrow

Confirms Javier Echave as Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect, having acted in the role on an interim basis.

Gatwick Airport

Chris Woodroofe has been promoted from Head of Passenger Operations to Chief Operating Officer. Scott Stanley, who previously held this position has been made

Infrastructure:

Skanska UK

Martin Neeson becomes an Executive Vice President and joins the executive management team with overall responsibility for the company’s services operations. Existing Executive Vice Presidents Gregor Craig and Thomas Faulkner have taken on executive responsibility for the building and civils operations.

ARCADIS

Announced that Neil McArthur, Chief Executive since May 2012, is leaving the company by mutual agreement.

Wates Group

Have taken on Skanska’s Paul Chandler as Group Managing Director of its Construction Group with effect from 1 January 2017.

Louis Berger

Have appointed James Rousell as Vice President and Managing Director for the UK.

Laing O’Rourke

Preconstruction Director Mark Richardson has left after nearly 40 years with the

DfT

Shane Snow has been appointed Head of High Speed 2 Land Assembly. He previously held the position of Head of the DfT’s seamless travel team since September 2014.

Transport for London

Mike Weston has left his position as Director of Buses at Transport for London. Weston is one of 49 senior managers and directors who have left TfL on a voluntary basis including; Michael Flynn, Miles Ashley, Glen Keelan, Ralph Freeston, Simon Addyman, Richard Carroll, Mike Stubbs, Christine Conlon, John Downes and Andy Bourne.

First Bus

John Dowie has been appointed to the new position of Director – local strategies. He joins on secondment from the DfT.

AECOM

Have appointed Derval Cummins as European Advisory Leader – Transportation. She joins from EY where she was Head of Transport, Ireland.

ATC JV

Mike Greenwood leaves to join Siemens Rail Automation as a Project Director.

TRL
Paul Zanelli joins as Engineering and Technology Director, from his position as Chief Technical Officer at Transport Systems Catapult.

Office of Rail and Road

Graham Richards has been appointed Director, Railway Performance and Planning at the having been acting as interim.

Stagecoach

Stagecoach Merseyide and South Lancashire have appointed Alex Crane as Operations Manager and Neil Bolton as Engineering Manager. Matthew Arnold has been appointed Commercial Director of Stagecoach’s Kent and East Sussex operations. Stagecoach East Scotland’s managing director Andrew Jarvis is also leaving the company.

Royal Haskoning DHV

Has appointed Alan Gerrett as its new UK Business Strategy Director. He joins the company from DEME Group

Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA)

Have appointed Matthew Vickerstaff as its deputy CEO and Head of Project Finance.

A-one+

Have named Chris Sheppard as the new General Manager for its work in Highways England Area 4. Sheppard was formerly CH2M’s Development Director for Rail, working on the High Speed 2 (HS2) route development from London to Crewe.

BAM Construction

Tim Chell has been recruited as Western Regional Director. He will be replacing Nick Goff, who is retiring.

Clancy Consulting

Gavin Jack joins as Divisional Director at the firm’s Glasgow office, having recently returned from Australia where he has been working for the past five years.

Are you ready for 2017?

Many of our clients are asking to meet us pre-Christmas and early January regarding resourcing plans for key hires in 2017.

To arrange a call or meeting with us please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

5 steps to building a positive employer brand

What was it that immediately attracted you to consider your current job?

I bet your initial instinct had absolutely nothing to do with job description, salary or location and whole lot more to do with your perception of the company itself.

A range of factors can attract people to jobs – but there are some things that put almost everyone off. If you’re looking to dissuade the best people from applying for your senior management vacancy, a good place to start would be by building a negative employer brand.

Every organisation has an employer brand, which is effectively its reputation and perception in the market as a good or bad place to work. If we approach someone who has a negative opinion of a firm as an employer, it doesn’t matter what opportunities a role offers, where it is based or how much it pays. They won’t be interested.

The good news is that there is a lot you can do to improve your employer brand. If you get it right, candidates will come to you directly and via internal referrals, saving you a lot in recruitment fees.

Here is my five-point guide to creating a positive employer brand. Follow these tips and you won’t have any trouble attracting and retaining top quality individuals for your business:

1. Treat employees well

The most important thing you can do to give people the impression it would be a good experience to work for you is – unsurprisingly – make it a good experience to work for you. There are no shortcuts here.

Every single member of your staff will know a number of people who could potentially work for you. If they are not being treated fairly and given opportunities to develop then all the PR and HR tricks in the world will not help you.

On average, an individual will tell 16 people if they have had a bad experience, as opposed to 9 if they have had a positive experience. There is a reason they say bad news travels fast.

An important consideration when managing the culture of your organisation is ensuring staff will speak highly of working for you. Building a strong reputation in the market means that half of the battle is already won when trying to attract potential candidates for a role.

2. Treat past and future employees well

The employee-employer relationship does not begin and end with the handing over of the pass to the staff car park. From the moment someone applies for a position, they are forming an opinion of your company as an employer, and they won’t be afraid to share it.

We approached someone recently for a senior infrastructure job, but he was not interested because the firm in question had messed him about on a previous Director role some years ago by changing the date of his final interview four times (after he had booked his travel arrangements and time off) and it had understandably left a bad taste. Not only was this strong candidate lost to the employer, you can be sure he had told his peers about his experience.

You are likely to interview at least four times as many people as you hire in a given year, so treat all applicants and interviewees well, reply promptly, speak to them professionally, give them a positive impression when they come in for interview and provide them with timely and meaningful feedback.

Similarly, don’t forget about people after they hand their notice in. Maintain good relations up to and beyond the point they leave. They may wish to come back one day and, regardless of this, they will be asked their opinions about the firm for some years to come.

3. Website

One of the first things people do after hearing about a role is go on the company’s website. So getting a good, easily found ‘Join us’ or ‘Work for us’ section on there is critical. Tell a compelling story about your organisation’s culture, projects and contracts, and most importantly, get existing staff to sell working for you.

Testimonials from people who have progressed, who enjoy working for you, who have great stories to tell are very valuable in promoting employee engagement and advocacy. Photos and videos are great ways of bringing your employer brand to life through the people who embody it.

4. PR

Look to get positive stories in the trade, local and national press. Prospective employees like to see that a company is doing well so good financial results, contract wins, industry awards, new senior appointments and office openings should all be publicised. Candidates also like to feel they know a company and understand its strategy so get this across.

There is also a case for getting employer-specific stories out, such as training successes and people awards. HR and PR teams should work closely to ensure messages put out are not just aimed at potential clients but at possible employees.

Also remember that when staff are working with clients, suppliers, in partnerships with competitors and when they attend industry events, they are acting as ambassadors for your company. The manner in which they conduct themselves will help build – or damage – your employer brand.

5. Job adverts

Use job adverts themselves to sell the company as an employer. Don’t just list what you want from candidates, give them a reason to want to work for you. It’s a crowded marketplace, so don’t waste this space just bleating on about how great the company is. Tell the reader why they should work for you – what are the career opportunities, the training support, the chances of working abroad, the culture and the benefits? Always keep the employer brand at the forefront of their minds and communicate what’s in it for them as a potential employee.

The talent market in transport and infrastructure has never been more competitive and so employer branding has never been more crucial. With the rise of social media transparency, it isn’t enough to rely on recruitment advertising or executive search agencies alone to sell your brand to candidates. The brand needs to start from within the company and all employees, from the CEO to the person on the reception desk, need to buy in to a unified message.

**This blog post is the third of seven based on Newsom Consulting’s eBook The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Senior Managers in Transport and Infrastructure**

To get your free copy of the e-book of “The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Senior Managers in Transport & Infrastructure” please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

It’s a buyers’ market

When I started Newsom Consulting in 2010 the economic downturn had caused a contraction of the infrastructure industry which led to a very employer-driven recruitment market.

Many companies had frozen salaries, bonuses were rare, while some companies had even imposed short-term pay cuts. Very few resignations were defended with counter-offers or serious persuasion.

Fast forward six years and things look very different. Output is up, investment is up, a raft of infrastructure projects are in the pipeline and the employment market is a different place. Estimates suggest the UK infrastructure sector is set to grow by more than 50% by 2019. There are more roles than people qualified to fill them, and the onus is on the company to sell its opportunity to the spoilt-for-choice candidate.

It’s a major change, one that I don’t believe enough infrastructure and transport companies have adjusted to. Especially in large firms where the recruitment is sometimes delegated to individuals naturally removed from the cut and thrust of the operational business, there is not enough awareness of quite how competitive recruitment now is.

It’s tough for infrastructure companies to recruit good staff – and not just for blue collar operatives but for senior leaders that can make a huge difference to the success of an infrastructure project or operation.

Before I give you my tips to thriving in this climate, here are just some of the ways infrastructure workloads are set to expand:

  1. Heathrow Airport received the government’s backing in October for its project to build a third runway – and immediately announced it was starting work to further develop the project.
  2. Contracts for the enabling works for the first phase of High Speed 2 have been awarded, with stage one civils contracts due for award in early 2017.
  3. Contracts were finally signed for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in late September, with EDF saying the deals relaunched nuclear construction in this country. This has also helped advance the likelihood of the Horizon nuclear schemes happening.
  4. Sirius Minerals in October announced a stage one financing agreement for its c£2bn York Potash project with investors.
  5. Five routes were shortlisted for the Trans-Pennine road tunnel scheme in August and the Trans-Pennine West of Leeds rail programme is due to be awarded autumn 2017.
  6. The chancellor is expected to announce increased investment in road schemes in the autumn statement on November 23rd.

There are myriad other projects taking shape up and down the country as the infrastructure industry gets backing from investors and politicians, following a short hiatus around the time of the EU referendum.

At Newsom Consulting we have never been busier. Infrastructure companies are building up their teams to win and deliver this bounty of work. However, there are a finite number of good people to go round, and in my opinion the market is only going to get tighter in 2017 and 2018.

Here are my top tips for thriving in a candidate-driven recruitment frenzy:

1. Plan ahead

Considering how long it takes to bid for and win a major construction project, it is amazing how many companies call us in a minor panic because they haven’t got a Project Director, Construction Director or Head of Commercial in place for an imminent start of a new project.

Five years ago it would have been easier to find the right person at short notice, but now to get the best people for the job you need to think ahead to avoid making a distressed purchase.

The ideal senior candidate may have a six-month notice period and it could take you two months to identify and interview them to begin with. Build this in to your timetable at the start of a project.

2. Keep salaries under constant review

This is not just critical for successful recruitment, but for retention too – and keeping good people is a vital part of building a strong team.

The market is changing fast and generous annual pay rises are back with a bang so make sure you collect real data about salary levels in the market.

This will prevent your existing stars getting itchy feet as well as helping you to avoid wasting time interviewing people who aren’t right for the role because you set the remuneration too low.

We often provide our clients with salary benchmarking before the start of a search, which helps to establish realistic targets from the outset.

3. Promote the projects and the company

Do what you can to get the projects you are bidding or working on seen in a positive light in the media and the broader industry.

If you can get across the attractions of a scheme then you are one step closer to persuading people to consider a job on it when one becomes available. The same goes for promoting your company in general terms. Build a strong employer brand and a culture that candidates can buy in to.

We often hear from candidates, when asked what has attracted them to the role, that they were impressed by the detailed job descriptions and candidate brief’s we produce with our clients. A confident report detailing the company’s background’s and values as well as what is expected of the person who will be joining the company can speak volumes to someone considering making a change.

4.  Be aware of people’s alternatives

People often think candidates are queuing up to join them but the reality at the moment is that there are a wide range of exciting, high profile infrastructure projects in all parts of the UK and many overseas in warmer climes.

People who have had to live away during the week in order to find work in the past, may well be looking at working closer to home. Europeans might be put off by the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Those from further afield might not see the current exchange rate as good enough to justify a 3-5 year stint on a major project in the UK.

Appreciate your position in the market and fight hard for good project leaders.

5. Move quickly

Don’t spend time and effort on a recruitment exercise just to get waylaid and leave strong candidates hanging around for a final interview or formal job offer. They will more likely than not get a better offer from elsewhere.

The industry is buzzing with recruitment. Be decisive; prioritise and organise the process; and make sure you keep candidates engaged.

Finally, with so many options available, fewer people are needing to actively look for jobs. It can pay to hire an executive search firm (such as our good selves!) to use all its experience, contacts and industry knowledge to target the right people in the right way to effectively fill your vacancy.

To find out more about how we can help you and your business compete for the best infrastructure talent please get in touch with me HERE to discuss further.

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

Money Matters – A Guide to getting the compensation package right

“A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.” – Jonathan Swift

So when it comes to attracting new senior hires – does money make the world go round?

It is true to say that people are motivated by a range of different factors at work, many of them are non-financial and do change in relative importance throughout an individual’s career. But experience tells us that 9 times out of 10, you have to offer people more money to move.

Last week, I talked about how to write a foolproof job description to attract high calibre candidates to your company. While this is a critical starting point for attracting the best talent, an attractive and well-defined role is just the first step. In order to convince anyone to leave their current job, you’re going to have to get your compensation offer right.

The remuneration package is the most tangible aspect to the offer and finding an optimal balance that works for all parties can be a fine line. It has to be enough to incentivise the candidate to move, within budget, and fair when compared with internal and external candidates with similar experience.

Here is my guide to getting your compensation package right for new hires;

1. Benchmark salaries

It’s essential to have a realistic salary in mind right at the beginning of the recruitment process. As an executive search firm, we plan out a project according to its budget and scope, it will influence where (and at what level) we will be able to attract people from.

It is very rare that clients come to us with a salary figure in mind for a position and we tell them they don’t need to pay that much. Much more often they underestimate.

Sometimes they will look to benchmark people in similar roles within their own company. Be careful when making comparisons to internal people who may be underpaid for their experience; if they have been a long-term employee, their salary won’t have increased in line with the market.

Take a look at your main competitors to get an idea of the market rate for similar positions. You can do this via contacts you have at these firms or those at consultants and clients who work closely with them. Executive search firms such as ourselves will also have a vast amount of data and industry knowledge to help you understand the market. We provide benchmarking information for free to our clients.

2. Incentivise

Once you know how much your role is worth, you need to make sure you are paying enough to convince the right people to leave their current jobs and work for you.

There can be an assumption when you’re immersed in a company that everyone is dying to work for you – but there are a lot of good firms out there and many people are settled in their jobs. They know their way around their existing roles and they may have built family routines around them. Put yourself in their shoes – why would you change all that to work for your company?

It is important to bear in mind that most candidates with a solid and successful career history will often seek an increase of 15-20%, with many actually moving for a c10-15% rise.

3. Get the balance right

Ultimately there is a trade-off between the job specification and the salary. If the salary is not moveable then you may have to be flexible on the level of skills and experience you require. Put simply, the more responsibility and skill requirements attached to a job, the higher the salary will have to be.

Be positive, look at the impact of the job. How much money could the right person make or save you, and therefore how much can you afford to pay to get – and retain – that person?

4. Be flexible

If you can’t change the base level of salary, little things can make a difference. You could base a role at home to allow travel to be claimed as an expense, or offer additional holiday allowance.

More and more companies are offering flexible compensation packages, allowing people to pick which benefits they like from a range of options. This works because different people have different situations and motivations, which also change throughout their career.

Some smaller companies can even work out specific plans to attract individuals, such as flexing pension contributions or bonuses up. Any flexibility you can find is a potential benefit.

If you have put together the best compensation package you can, you’ve re-evaluated your job specification and you still can’t find the person you want from within your market sector, it is always an option to investigate allied sectors.

For example, if you’re looking for a health and safety director with rail experience, but they are all in high demand, you could look to the oil and gas sector, which is not as buoyant at present. This sector may have strong people whose futures are uncertain and who may be keen to move.

Another approach is to recruit someone who is currently at the level below the role you are filling but is ready to take a step up in their career. They will be more affordable than someone already in the equivalent role at a competitor.

In both these cases you should expect to give more support at induction and anticipate a longer learning curve.

Flexibility can work well but to capitalise you need a broad sense of what is happening around you. Again this can come from research and contacts or you can look to tap into the knowledge of executive search firms who have a wealth of research at their disposal.

**This blog post is the second of seven based on Newsom Consulting’s ebook The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Senior Managers in Transport and Infrastructure***

To get your free copy of the e-book of “The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Senior Managers in Transport & Infrastructure” please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

How to write a foolproof job description

A job description is something we are all familiar with. But perhaps not everyone is quite as familiar with how important this tool is to attracting and retaining top talent to your company.

Say a key employee has moved on, or you’ve won a new contract, and you’re in the market for a senior manager. Attracting the right candidates for the role is critical for your business so the process needs to be treated properly – and that starts with the job description.

All too often we see job descriptions that clearly started as an internal tick-box exercise, perhaps to get a role signed off initially by the board.

Because of this, they are frequently not fit for their external purpose – a concise tool to relay the job requirements and required experience to candidates. This lets the company down right at the beginning of the process, putting off good people and potentially attracting unsuitable ones.

A good job description should have an overview, including the purpose of the role, reporting lines and location; key responsibilities and accountabilities; a reference to the roles’ internal and external contact points; and a person specification outlining what is expected of an applicant in terms of education, experience, skills and behaviours.

Furthermore, this is an opportunity to showcase the company’s brand, culture and values. First impressions count, even on paper, and a sloppy job description will do nothing to help prospective applicants buy in to the company’s ethos. A well written job description is an immediate differentiator.

Here are my five tips to writing a fail-safe job description:

  1. Get a broad range of input

It is important for HR teams to use their skills to guide a recruitment process, but there is a need for clear input from senior managers who will work directly with the employee.

As a rule, if you will be interviewing the candidates, you should help with the job description. Otherwise you will be wasting a lot of your own and other people’s time when you turn up at third interview and discount all the candidates for something no-one knew you required.

If the role will include working closely with a major client, it is wise to ask that client what kind of skills and competencies they think are important to the job.

  1. Stay up to date

Writing a good job description takes time, getting it right saves time. Candidates can tell when it’s been cobbled together by asking their HR team to take a job description for a similar role to the one in question and are vaguely asked to add a couple of things in. Or a line manager has taken a three-year-old job specification and hasn’t bothered to update it.

Either way you’re left with an inaccurate reflection of the role, and if you don’t set out with the right goal, what chance do you have of achieving it? Make sure you have a clear, up-to-date and bespoke job description written before you go to market.

  1. Avoid discrimination

The Equalities Act 2010 makes it illegal to treat people differently at work because of factors including gender, race, age, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy and religion.

Although most of these forms of discrimination are – thankfully – very rare in job descriptions, you must be careful with the terms you use to describe the attributes you want from candidates. Saying you want a set number of years of experience, or using adjectives such as ‘established’ or ‘mature’, can leave you open to claims of age discrimination.

Aside from the legal requisite for keeping an open mind when recruiting, there are sound business reasons for assessing a broad range of people and not ruling out potential stars because of a biased mind set.

  1. Avoid jargon

I’ve been handed job descriptions that say an employee will be expected to “provide expert advice to the MPR board on the TCO and changes to the TOM”.

It is important to stress that you are in a competitive market for people’s attention – many of whom are not even actively looking to change job. You must use the job description to sell the opportunity to work for your company – don’t turn people off using dull corporate language, that means very little to them.

Also, to attract the widest possible range of candidates, you want the job description to be understood by people from other companies, other sectors, maybe even other countries. Keep it simple.

  1.  Don’t over specify

This is a classic recruitment error. Someone asks a line manager what their ideal candidate looks like, gets a wish list that resembles a battery-powered motivational speaker and writes the job description in a way that turns away all mere mortals reading it.

Make sure you are ruthless here. Split the person specification into essential and desirable requirements, and think about what you really can’t live without.

One way we often help companies think about this is by looking at people who have excelled in the role in the past. If someone was recently promoted from the job, and didn’t have a degree, then perhaps you don’t need to list university education as an essential skill.

**This blog post is the first of seven based on Newsom Consulting’s ebook The Ultimate Guide to Hiring
Senior Managers in Transport and Infrastructure***

To get your free copy of the e-book of “The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Senior Managers in Transport & Infrastructure” please click HERE

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

Cultural fit; more important than technical expertise?

On any new recruitment brief, a client will have a specific list of criteria that the ideal candidate will possess; relevant experience, qualifications etc.. However having met the client, it is also important for a recruiter to get a good feel for the type of personality that would best fit their client’s team. A typical example could be that in a tight knit senior management team of big (predominantly extrovert) personalities, only a similar type of personality is actually going to ‘cut the mustard’ and fit in with that organisation in the long-term.

One of the processes we undertake to understand our clients better is to research who they have recruited in the past to gain an insight into the type of candidate they have historically recruited. You can do this with virtually any company; by analysing the employment history of external recruits; the types of places they have been recruited from, their educational background and those that have had quickest career trajectory (i.e. quick promotions upwards) we can build our knowledge of the right types of places to look for other candidates.

The team fit of any new recruit is crucially important for it to be successful in the long-term; and in the majority of cases a candidate that ticks less of the ideal technical boxes, but whom has the right personality for the client’s organisation, will be the individual recruited.

Essentially an employee who is a strong cultural fit is more likely to work well with other successful employees and the can continue to build their skills and competences over the course of time with that company. On the other hand, an employee who ticks all of the technical boxes desired, but that fails to fit in with the company culture is more likely to leave when a role comes up that is better aligned with their own values.

From a recruiter’s perspective, being aware of this ‘halo effect’ enhances our chances of securing successful long-term placements for our clients.

With all but the most technical of roles there are generally a number of interested candidates out there who can ‘do the job’, we will always look to find the best candidates that match our client’s ethos, management style and style of working to achieve a long-term success from that recruitment.

There are three key questions we recommend all clients ask themselves about a candidate before making a commitment to hire;

  1. Can the candidate do the job; do they have the right technical, managerial and leadership competences?
  2. Are they motivated to do the job? Are there ‘push factors’ for them to leave their current employer and ‘pull factors’ for them to join you? Unless there are clear motivations beyond a financial increase to move then there is always a big risk that the candidate could be counter-offered by their current employer.
  3. Are they a good cultural fit for your team and/or organisation?

On balance I would recommend placing a priority emphasis on the cultural fit of potential hires rather than focusing on those with the highest degree of technical competence as it is likely to lead to better long-term success of that individual within the business and the relevant competencies can be gained over time. This does not mean the importance of increased cultural diversity and gender mix should be ignored though, as diversity only works to strengthen a cohort, so we always look for the best balance and fit within these margins.

From a wider business perspective the biggest asset to any company are its people so it is paramount that the right people are recruited above those that simple tick more of the technical attributes desired for a particular job.

To discuss how to attract the right cultural fits for your business please do get in touch; [email protected]

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

interviewees sat down

How to overcome interview bias (including the mini-me effect)

Most of us would not say we are biased. We consider ourselves to be objective, fair-minded individuals, capable of judging people solely on the basis of merit. The reality is somewhat different; as human beings we all use shortcuts to form impressions of people, including when recruiting.

Research over the last 20 years* has shown that we are susceptible to unconscious biases that come from direct experiences we’ve had with people and situations, as well as through indirect experiences from media and culture.

A report from the CIPD last year** found that employers’ perceptions of whether a person would fit with their company could be determined by a whole host of factors that had no impact on performance; including their looks, the university they attended, their leisure interests and even the candidates’ name.

The UK transport & infrastructure industry features many major international companies working on multi-billion-pound projects. But, like most sectors, when it comes to recruitment of people into senior roles it can still feel like a small world, with the same names cropping up time and again.

So what should we look out for when interviewing? The following are some of the common interview biases;

First impression bias

It’s often said that interviewers can make their mind up about whether they want to hire someone within 3 minutes of meeting them.

Temporary nervousness at the start of an interview is not uncommon, although nerves usually subside as the interview progresses, the damage may be already done. Does this nervousness make someone a bad candidate?

For business development roles and other externally facing roles a visibly nervous candidate may give justifiable concern, after all they may be expected to build rapport with, and present to, people they don’t know frequently. However for more internally focused roles, putting too much emphasis on first impression could de-select strong candidates.

Beauty bias

It’s not fair or right, but candidates who are more physically attractive stand more chance of being successful in interviews. Unfortunately, attractiveness has been found to influence employers’ hiring judgments; attractive candidates are generally perceived as more likeable, happier, and to have more socially desirable traits. Studies*** have consistently found that this unconscious attractiveness bias in the workplace impacts decisions on hiring, as well as promotions and compensation.

In case you were wondering research shows that attractive people are no more or less capable, intelligent, or sociable than less attractive people! So even though we may not set out to hire based on looks, we probably unconsciously do.

Using a structured competency interview format alongside other objective forms of evaluation, such as case study exercises and work samples, may reduce the risk of this happening.

Mini-me effect

Many interviewers have an unconscious tendency to favour people who are similar to themselves. They look for mini-me protégés that they can train up. Narcissistic yes, but true.

This is common when the interviewer is back-filling their role or interviewing for a position they have previously undertaken. They feel their own background is ideal for the role, so when they see someone with a similarity to them (such as attended the same university) they have an innate tendency to seek confirmation that the candidate is good.

I’ve been asked in the past by a very sporty Managing Director to ideally find people who have played sport to a high level. There was no direct link between sporting achievement and the requirements of the Director vacancy. His personal view was top achievers will compete at a high level in sport as well as work, as he and a number of his fellow Directors did.

Clearly this could exclude some very capable people from making the company’s shortlist. But it’s not black and white. There is an argument that finding someone with similar interests outside work will help a new employee fit into the team.

The mini-me effect clearly does not help recruit a diverse team. If you keep hiring people like yourself you may end up with teams of people with the same strengths and – critically – the same fundamental weaknesses. Having two interviewers at each assessment stage can help to counter this effect.

Halo effect

The “halo effect” is a type of bias in which the interviewer takes one of a candidate’s key attributes/achievements and positively generalises about the rest of your skills and experiences based on this one factor! For example, ‘Bob gave a great presentation at an industry conference I went to last year; he must therefore have all the leadership skills we need for this role to.’

The devil you know

Recruiting is an inherently risky process, for both the employer and candidate. One simple way to de-risk the process is to employ people you have worked with in the past.

There are some companies in the industry where there senior team all worked together previously at the same business. While this can be beneficial, at least you know what you are getting, it is limiting.

When we present a longlist of potential candidates to a client for their input, it is commonplace for the hiring team to say they already know a handful of them. The bias to previous colleagues could work either way. They may rule a capable person out based on their recollection of their position five years ago. Or they could favour a candidate who impressed in a meeting – even if the role they are trying to fill would not require the same skills. Things change. People change.

We recently filled a project director position for a joint venture on a major transport project. Our client had a clear favourite of the other shortlisted candidates but went with the consensus of opinion from their JV partners who had worked with one of the other shortlisted candidates before. Our client didn’t want to stick their neck out for the best candidate.

Stereotyping bias

“That business isn’t doing well; we don’t want to consider anyone from there.” – is a common example of this stereotyping. However, not everyone within a business which is struggling is bad, just as not everyone in a high-performing business is good. This type of thinking eliminates some good candidates from consideration.

Finding the right fit for a senior position is an important and challenging job, and our unconscious bias makes it even tougher. Professional executive search companies like us can help make it easier.

If you want to explore new avenues of talent, and step away from the same old names that crop up, just click here to get in touch. I’d happily spend ten minutes talking with you about how to thoroughly map the market and improve your recruitment processes.

Thank you for reading my post. I regularly write about issues effecting talent and recruitment in the transport and infrastructure sectors.

Sources:

* Banaji et al (2003)

** Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, A Head for Hiring 2015: Behavioural Science of Recruitment and Selection

*** Cornell HR Review (2013). May the Best Looking Man Win: The Unconscious Role of Attractiveness in Employment Decisions

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

team sat around a laptop

Five Powerful Reasons You Should Hire The Over Fifties

There are almost 10 million people aged 50 and older in work in the UK*. Yet many businesses in transport and infrastructure are reluctant to hire candidates in this demographic for senior management roles.

‘Older workers’ (as the UK government now officially refers to this group) represent about a third of the talent pool available to employers, and by 2022 there will be 3.7 million more in this category. As a country we are facing a major demographic change.

While there has been a significant progress and effort in tackling gender diversity in hiring processes, the same cannot be said for age discrimination – negative attitudes towards the over fifties are still common.

Directors who have been very much in demand for their whole career often find the phone stops ringing with potential job offers once they hit 55. It has become common for candidates in their fifties to omit graduation year and the early part of their career history from their CV to avoid any potential age bias.

Some employers hold a view that all older candidates will be “winding down” and less motivated than their younger peers. This is of course nonsense, a generalisation cannot be made of circa 10 million people. Every individual should be assessed on their own merits, not their date of birth.

There is a strong business imperative, in addition to the ethical and legal reasons, to address this issue; the looming skills crisis.

But are employers in the transport and infrastructure sectors reaching out to the over fifties? Despite the statistics – and clear age discrimination laws – some companies still won’t consider recruiting a director into their business who is into their 50s.

So to do our bit to help overcome this bias that still persists in the industry, here are five ways recruiting a more experienced candidate can benefit your business:

1. Industry knowledge & experience

A candidate with 35+ years’ in the sector will have experienced good times and bad, and may well have worked in different parts of the industry (contractor, consultant and client for example) giving them a broader perspective than many others. Furthermore, this industry knowledge and experience is invaluable for coaching and mentoring younger colleagues to realise their potential.

For major engineering projects that only happen once every 30 years in significant quantity, such as rail electrification or nuclear new build, older workers become even more important. If a business needs nuclear new build experience they either have to look abroad or look to the 50+ demographic in the UK, as no projects of this type have been undertaken on these shores this century.

2. Self-awareness

Experience often makes people more rounded employees. They play to their strengths and have rounded off some of their weaknesses, often knowing what type of people they need to have around them to get the right balance.

3. Flexibility

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood may have just had twins in his late 60s but many people in their late 50s and beyond have seen their children grow up and leave home. They may be more willing to travel extensively for business or relocate, particularly to hardship locations, than colleagues with dependent families. For global roles in locations without good international schools this can be a big plus.

4. Contacts

If you’ve worked in the industry for 30 or 40 years you should have a decent looking black book of phone numbers. Your peers and former colleagues may be spread far and wide across the industry, becoming an increasingly valuable resource to call on. Don’t underestimate the benefits of hiring someone who may have well-established, personal relationships with key contacts in your clients, competitors and supply chain.

5. Credibility & Status

As well as the knowledge and experience you get from many years in the same profession, you pick up a certain credibility. It can be easier to build a relationship with a client and take people with you through difficult or changing times if you have a CV full of negotiating similar situations. Hiring someone to a tough project that has a proven track record can be a massive boost to a team.

For many of the reasons listed above, those chairing industry groups and taking leading roles in professional institutions are often over 50. Having senior employees with this industry status is reflects well on your company, gives you access to useful forums of industry discussion and increases your exposure to potential recruits.

Of course not everyone over 50 will have all of the attributes listed above. But with almost 10 million people in that age bracket, and a massive recruitment challenge ahead of the transport and infrastructure sector, you would be crazy not to look for those who do.

What would you add to this list?  What other qualities do your more experienced employees bring? To comment or contact me just click here

Thank you for reading my post. I regularly write about issues affecting talent and recruitment in the transport and infrastructure sectors.

*Office of National Statistics – 2016.

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director

people holding up question marks

The Impossible Job

By the time you read this Sam Allardyce will have presented to the media as the next Manager of the England football team, in what is often referred to as “the Impossible Job”.

While succeeding in the England job can certainly seem impossible, recruiting someone who wants to do it isn’t. Despite the pressure of carrying the expectations of a nation on your shoulders, trying to manage the egos of 23+ prima donnas, the continual media onslau
ght and millions of people dissecting your professional competence on a daily basis, someone always takes the job not long after it becomes vacant. A salary of £3.5m probably helps.

Yet the same cannot be said if you are recruiting senior management roles in the infrastructure, rail and transport sectors, with many businesses often struggling to fill a role within three months when a senior employee leaves.

poll published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills earlier this year found that 34% of roles in the infrastructure sector were classified by the employer as “difficult to fill” because it couldn’t find “applicants with the appropriate skills, qualifications or experience”.

So what do you do if you have a very demanding, senior position to fill and you don’t have a multi-million salary to offer like the FA?

Leaving senior roles open like this can be catastrophic. Another senior employee is often informally covering the role, desperately trying to do two jobs simultaneously and struggling to give either the attention it needs. This can lead to them getting burnt out, long-term decisions may well be put off, opportunities missed, team morale hit, and customers lost.

Often leaving a senior role vacant for a long period of time can lead to those at the rung below becoming disgruntled at the lack of certainty and long-term direction.

The urgency to hire is high but companies are wisely unwilling to hire a sub-optimal candidate just because they are available.

So what can you do to stop the process grinding to a halt?

A major infrastructure business recently contacted us with a senior vacancy that had been open for nine months. Another search company had been commissioned to headhunt for the role eight months previously and had failed to fill it. The business had been recommended to us by another client as head-hunters that like a challenge. The successful candidate from our search has just started and the client is relieved that the problem role was solved for them within eight weeks of appointing us.

We don’t claim to have a magic wand – just plenty of market experience and a practical approach to solving recruitment problems in the rail, aviation, power and infrastructure sectors.

The best approach when faced with an “Impossible Job” is to focus on the following steps

1. The Job Spec

The first thing is to look through the job specification, particularly the person specification to see what it’s asking for. How realistic is it? Is it what they really need? Or just some compilation of the individual wishlists of several of the stakeholders that hasn’t been sense checked.

It boils down to finding someone who ticks three boxes – they can do the job; they are motivated to do the job; and they fit with the culture of the organisation. All too often companies focus on the first and third of these aims and forget about the middle one, with predictable results. The key is to take each required criteria and decide if it is essential or desirable, which should result in a realistic job specification.

2. Compare the Market

Look at the salary, benefits package, location, appeal of the role, employment brand of the company and current competition/availability for someone with the required skills and experience. Can it be done for that salary and in that location? If so how can it be done and if not what needs to be flexed in order to recruit the role? The FA’s appointment panel were widely reported to have done this early on; comparing the salary required to attract a top manager from overseas (c£5m per annum) with the salary needed to attract the strongest available English manager (c£3.5m per annum), which led them to decide a home-grown appointment was the best option.

While money is rarely the most important factor for senior candidates when considering a job move, it has to be right. If you are offering well below the market rate for the experience and capability you’re seeking, filling the job is never going to happen. We can offer market based evidence of the going rate that you need to offer to attract their target candidate.

If pay isn’t the issue, then greater flexibility on location may help. A company may be asking for current competitor experience but be based nowhere near the majority of firms in their sector. What are the allied sectors that are more local to you? Another option is to look at the extent to which you could accommodate someone working from home or another regional office for part of the week, which may make the role more manageable for some candidates.

3. Past History

What’s been done so far to fill the role? Has another search company worked on it, have an internal recruitment team (if you have one) been working on it etc? By reviewing the work done previously by others you can see if there are gaps that were missed. Were the right businesses targeted? This review allows you to plan the right approach this time around.

4. Be Prepared

What are the selling points of the role and its potential career path within the company? This can make the difference when face to face with the dream candidate who ticks all the boxes, but who is well looked after by his current employer and weighing up if they wish to take it forward. We also prepare an in-depth candidate brief to share with candidates to sell the role that they can read at their leisure.

5. Agree a Plan

If everyone involved within the employer and the search company has a project plan, showing which days they will be required for interviews etc, the search can be concluded in a much quicker time frame.

By marrying the company’s expectations with the job it is offering, we always back ourselves to crack even the hardest to fill role in transport and infrastructure. With the number of major projects on the horizon, and the skills shortages that are predicted, it’s not going to get any easier to attract the top talent in the market.

If you have an “Impossible Job” to recruit we can provide you with a consultation as above to ensure your process leads to success.

To book a call please click here

Author: Jim Newsom

Jim Newsom

Managing Director