JGP News
A snapshot of some of our most recent work and an insight into some of our ideas on the hot topics and issues that affect the public and not for profit sectors, and how we are responding to them.
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Catch them while they’re young
(Printed Guardian Public, March 12 2008)
Recruiters in local government must start reaching out to the Facebook generation, says Richard Tyrie.
Local government is facing a recruitment timebomb. It’s the end of baby boomers’ working lives. Nearly one-third of local government staff are scheduled to retire in the next decade. This loss of senior and highly knowledgeable talent needs to be planned for.
Local authorities will have to recruit unless they wish to engage retiring staff as consultants. Employers will have to ensure that there is adequate knowledge transfer, avoiding corporate memory loss.
Employers need to communicate with potential candidates, this may take the form of email and telephone inquiries from school leavers or feedback from candidates’ interviews. They must use this information to nurture the next wave of potential employees - whether social carers, architects, teachers or chief executives.
There is opportunity here. As local authorities improve community charge collection, health, and education services through e-enablement, there are cost savings to be made in streamlining and enhancing recruitment. Prospective staff can be kept informed through dedicated websites, allowing councils to reduce their expenditure on recruitment advertising. They can closely target key workers through specialist trade publications, or microsites within their main web pages.
This is a long way off for many. Employers need to make headway in working out their future employment needs, recruiting processes - especially paper-based-ones - and filter in more strategic, web-based recruitment that can operate across whole authorities and harness the impact of different media and/or social networking channels to target different age groups. The figures are stark. Only 2% of London borough’s staff are under 25. Unless local government reaches out to the Facebook generation, it will fail to attract jobseekers and eventually lose out to other organisations as they become employers of choice instead.
Online communities attract people with similar interests, demographics, and backgrounds; a recruiter’s dream. The ability to target an employment opportunity and tailor the message to a specific demographic segment is very powerful. there is no better alternative to using the internet as the means to become and employer of choice.
Richard Tyrie is co-founder of JGP, a web based talent management company.
