The Upside of a Down Market

Up until recently, full employment and heavy competition for labour from the financial sector and the resources boom made it something of a challenge. Many businesses settled for less than they wanted in new and existing staff, and paid more than they wanted to gain or retain them. But the last six months has seen a shift and the release of some high-grade talent into the marketplace.

Top Grading

It pays to constantly train, skill and motivate in order to raise the performance levels of your entire team (including you), and to review the bottom 20% of performers against what’s currently available in the labour marketplace.
Now is the time to see who’s out there and how you might include them to strengthen your team.

Sure, times are tougher than a year ago, but we’re seeing the tougher and better managed players lift their game, their service and product levels, their overall performance and, with it, their market share. Many are busier than ever, with some of our own clients more than 40% up on last year’s figures.

In the meantime, on the other side of the equation, the weaker players have cut their service standards, cheapened their products, cut their activity levels and marketing and downsized their staff – all proven losing strategies in any downturn.

Now’s a good time to run an ad for new staff, just to see who’s out there.

One thriving client with two vacancies for skilled tradespeople recently had more than 60 responses to their advertisement. They took the two they wanted – and took two more because, in our client’s words, “They were too good to leave out there on the market; it’s easier for us to find new work for them, than to find them when we need them!”.