Badenoch & Clark’s business transformation, projects and change team experienced an interesting year in 2014. The move from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015 marked a turning point as both the economy and level of confidence returned.
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Badenoch & Clark’s business transformation, projects and change team
experienced an interesting year in 2014. The move from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015
marked a turning point as both the economy and level of confidence returned.
This shift has been particularly evident
in the interim space, which has seen
sustained growth in the requirement
for business transformation specialists,
together with a subtle change in the
skills required of them. The driver for
this appears to be a clear move away
from ‘change for remedy ‘ towards
‘transformation for growth’.
Roles in demand
A number of core themes are beginning to emerge,
as evidenced by our regular dialogue with both
candidates and clients. We have seen a steep increase
in interim project & programme roles which require a
“Communications” angle. Our clients are recognising
(that in complex organisations) there is an increased
need to communicate their messages around
transformation properly. This is a niche cluster of
people, and can prove difficult for clients to attract talent
in these areas.
We have taken on an increasing number of assignments
where we are retained to build projects and change
teams from scratch. Using our internal consultancy
expertise, we are able to advise and evidence experience
of identifying skills gaps and key areas for our customers
to recruit. Many clients are playing “catch up” from a
delivery perspective versus strategy/vision.
Supply vs. demand
Challenges in supply vs. demand lie most clearly in the PMO space.
There is a huge drive (both permanent and interim) to recruit
PMO professionals. There are more mid-tier jobs at £40k - £60k
(permanent) which has created a vacuum in skills, with many
candidates having multiple offers, ultimately driving up the average
salary in this area.
The digital sector remains an area which consistently demands high
quality interims. We identified this early last year and our dedicated
digital/media team continue to progress with new clients that have
come to us based on our knowledge of the best people available for
such contracts. Retail / FMCG clients have featured more so in Q1
2015 than ever before. The key reason for this is due to an increased
focus on aligning business or product teams with the overall
strategy. Partnership was the most regularly used word last year
and this looks to continue. Candidates with experience in brand-
oriented organisations have seen greater success in the recruitment
process. Rightly or wrongly this is down to the clients expectation
that there will be a “softer landing” from a cultural perspective. This
in turn has created a greater demand for sector-specific candidates
which (when not readily available) has increased our time to hire.
South East
The digital sector remains an area which
consistently demands high quality
interims.
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Midlands
Several themes dominate the employment market at the moment. After several
years of austerity, businesses are positioning themselves for rebound and this is
visible in several key areas.
After redundancies and restructures at the start of the economic challenge,
organisations are now keen to position themselves for growth and this means
increasing their permanent bench strength.
The drive from above is that Businesses
and managers are still under pressure
to do more for less; so continuous
improvement, efficiency drives and
process improvement environments
continue to drive organisations and
recruitment.
Sector experience
In the financial services sectors, industry experience
is vital. These organisations continue to recruit
heavily, especially on regulatory and compliance
projects and programmes, which continue to
dominate this area.
The energy and utilities companies are also
recruiting heavily; several of these organisations
have restructured recently meaning that the
market has benefited from an influx of highly
skilled industry specialists. Industry regulation
and competitive advantage like ‘smart metering’
continue the drive for recruitment across this sector.
Digital change
Digital transformation and improved accessibility is driving a large
number of change projects at the moment. Aside from the technical
skills required to drive change, many businesses are now splitting
their IT Project divisions to reflect the distinction between IT related
skills and more generic, people and process related change skills.
This is often referred to in the industry as business projects/change,
as opposed to technical or IT projects.
Traditionally, project & transformation roles have sat within IT (due
to the nature of what’s driving the change). Now, many businesses
are restructuring their project & programme delivery functions
to ensure behavioural and process change in conjunction with
technical change. This ensures better delivery, increased change
management, and ensures the benefits of the project or programme
are realised.
There is also competition from large shared service centres that
have been set up across the region or are moving into the region -
RAC, ATS, Adecco, DTZ, UTC, Rentokil, Severn Trent, Lafarge Tarmac,
Deutsche bank, Lloyds and National Grid. These centres require huge
efficiency and improvement drives, coupled with the people required
to set up relocations of this scale.
Candidates with experience in agile project management are
in higher demand but short supply, particularly those who are
qualified. This is because these projects promote adaptive
planning, evolutionary development, early delivery and continuous
improvement, and encourage rapid and flexible response to change.
These skills are increasingly desirable for businesses that need to
see results quickly.
Candidates with
experience in agile
project management
are in higher demand
but short supply,
particularly those who
are qualified.