Greg Hollis’ Post

In the past week we have seen Hays, Robert Walters and PageGroup all reporting declines in net fee income vs the same period last year. Robert Walters are down 12% on NFI, Hays are down 11% on NFI & Michael Page have reported at 13.5% decrease in GP. It is clear that global hiring markets remain challenging and that material improvement will be gradual. Overall, temporary recruitment is continuing to outperform permanent as clients seek more flexible options. Permanent recruitment tends to see longer time to hire and lower levels of confidence. https://lnkd.in/deP5BNdN

The slow death of global recruitment businesses? 🔵 Page Group announced it's results this week and they were (as expected) pretty sobering. 📉 I always keep an eye on their results, partly for old times sake, but also as the largest permanent recruiter in the world, they are an excellent bell-wether for the industry & the wider economy as a result of their global/sector diversity. There is zero good news in these results: - Headline Gross Profit £842.5m - worst year since 2020. - Reduced sales in ALL geographic territories. - GP down 20% on 2023. Is this the beginning of the end of these large recruiters? Afterall Robert Walters & Hays' results have been similarly dismal. Nick Kirk's (CEO) statement makes grim reading expecting further worsening conditions in Europe and notes the widespread instability in the world. Getting back to the floor, this statement is very telling: "The conversion of interviews to accepted offers remains the most significant area of challenge as the ongoing macro-economic uncertainty continues to impact candidate and client confidence, also extending the time-to-hire. " 📉 What is concerning is that world growth rates for the last two years has returned to 2-3%, where it was for most of the last decade, yet the decline for Page and others has accelerated. ❓ So are the big recruiters' results simply an indication of the economic malaise or is this a longer-term change to the workforce, as increased digitisation continues to reshape the world of work? I suspect it's a bit of both. 🥊 Whilst politicians of all stripes across the world fight like cats in a sack, many pushing for isolationist strategies which most economists would say will not promote growth, it does feel that we may not be out of the woods just yet I'm afraid. 🌈 On a brighter note I worked with three SME recruiters this year who smashed 2023 - so there is good growth to be had in some markets for emerging brands. 🌈 💙 Good luck in 2025 to all of you as we continue to fight the good fight and hope for better times. 💙 #PageGroupResults #Recruitment #Economy #GlobalTrade https://lnkd.in/e5J2jmw4

💭 Thought for the Day: Why Do Research Agencies Embrace Milestone Payments for Their Work but Expect Recruiters to Work Without Guarantees?? 💭🧐 Imagine this: You’re a research agency/insights consultancy, meticulously planning every step of your project - defining objectives, crafting methodologies, and delivering insights that shape strategic decisions. Your payment structure? Crystal clear. Milestone-based payments that reflect the value of your expertise and the time you invest. Now flip the scenario. What if a client said, “We’ll engage three research agencies. The one whose findings we like best will get paid”? Would you even start the work? Would you give it your all, knowing there’s no guaranteed return? Yet, this is exactly the expectation many market research & insights businesses place on their recruitment partners. • No retainer • No milestone payments • Only pay if you make a hire (and maybe not even then!) But here’s the REAL question (if you're still reading! 😂): How would the quality of research - or hires - change if market research agencies or recruiters weren’t compensated fairly for their efforts? Would you give 100 plus % to a project if payment depended entirely on outcomes beyond your control? It’s worth considering: structured payments and trust are what drive COMMITMENT QUALITY and RESULTS in any professional partnership. If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do you approach payment structures with your trusted RECRUITMENT PARTNERS? Is there a better way forward, i.e. fractional/embedded TA model (aka PAYG), fixed fee, or a retainer at a fixed fee (no matter how high the salary)? Which model will work with you? ⬇️👇 #Recruitment #Research #Partnerships #MilestonePayments #BusinessThoughts #MarketResearch #ResTech #Recruting #TalentAcqusition

Incredible numbers comparison to this time last year! The number of active postings in February 2024 was 1,873,386, which is lower than a year ago (2.5 million) according to the latest Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) and Lightcast Labour Market Tracker. In a saturated market, where we still see many Recruitment Agencies offering the same traditional service and model I wonder how many will still be around come the end of 2024. Trying to deliver with a legacy transactional operational model, no longer fit for purpose, in a vastly changed market with hugely different buying persona, demands innovative recruitment solutions to hook new customers. This means that investment in new target operating models and enabling technology, embracing supporting AI will be key, but so will having a clear differential in a new world, and that has to be more than offering the lowest % Margin. Those agencies that think customers will stay because the pain of swapping out to new providers is too much, may be in for a rude awakening. I feel these market conditions will initiate the emergence, from forward leaning agencies; new differentials being presented, creative commercial modelling proposed and truly transparent collaborative gain share relationships Thats strategic partnership - a huge shift from the all too often, supplier vendor relationships that dominate in our space. Where are you at? Tick which statements dominate your weekly operational calls and monthly sales calls, it should give you a reasonable idea where you are on the 'supplier vendor to strategic partner' continuum: ▶ We need to come in sub 70 pence margin ▶ They don't want our integrated solution potential they just want the workers to fill the shifts ▶ UI data shows low adoption of our tech with existing customers ▶ We only have low % of full supply ▶ We only have stakeholders at a junior level - nobody senior engages with us ▶ They want to try us out with a few workers to start with OR 🔅 We have sole supply or prime vendor status 🔅 We have helped shape their Employer Brand Strategy and `EVP and used this to inform candidate attraction strategies 🔅 We discuss our staffing capabilities within the context of their overall contingent resourcing model 🔅 We have a truly integrated solution enabled with our technology and automation 🔅 We have agreed a tailored pricing model, that rewards high perfromance measured against a scorecard of KPI 🔅 We are engaged with the key decision and policy makers in their business through regular MBR and QBR Have I missed any? #recruitment #agencies #transformation #strategicpartnerships

Is the London market bucking the downward trend? It was all doom and gloom last week when KPMG and the REC published their latest jobs survey for the month of October. The number of people seeking work rose for the 20th successive month. The permanent placement index fell to 44.1 and the temporary billings index dropped to 47.2. Anything below 50 signals a contraction in hiring. The government also decided to put the boot in and introduced £40 billion of new taxes in the budget of which £25 billion will come from an increase in employers' NI contributions. Someone turn the lights off. It's not great reading, is it? Despite this, something positive is happening in the staffing sector and its been happening now for a few weeks. Recruitment consultancies, executive search firms and resource augmentation consulting firms are beginning to grow. Not just by a little. But by a lot. You can see it yourself in your LinkedIn feeds with the numerous announcements by new joiners. The recruitment sector is scaling up to take advantage of what is expected to be a buoyant 2025. And London firms seem to be leading this growth. We have one client that wants to hire 100 people. That represents a 35% increase in headcount for them. A consulting client are increasing their headcount in their sales function by 50% and they want these people in situ within the next 3 months. And so it goes on. The question to ask yourselves is whether your leadership has what it takes to benefit from the potential uplift and lead you through to better times or whether they are too reactive and focused on reducing costs? _________________________ If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your network and follow me, Simon Gee for my insights and daily content about the staffing sector. For senior positions, please send me a DM. For recruiter to manager level recruitment assignments, please contact Sam.

As far as compensation is concerned, experienced search staff were the winners of last year’s economic downturn. YoY total comp was down for search professionals with less than 5 years’ experience, and up for those with 6 years or more. As firms downsized, Partners were running streamlined practices, allowing them to take a bigger piece of the pie. In a tight market, demand for experienced professionals surged leading to increased competition and firms turning to bespoke compensation plans in order to land talent. Experienced professionals were largely focussed on securing a high base salary if they were to consider moving amidst a volatile year in search. You can read more about the current compensation trends in our Executive Search Compensation and Market Insights report, using the link below: https://lnkd.in/e57vcYJb

No runners. I repeat, no runners. It's official, our industry, the recruitment industry is doomed. Firstly, Stevo Steven Bartlett himself said it was broken, so we were on the back foot from early summer. Then there has been the raft of doom mongering from within the industry itself, we seem to now be obsessed with reporting downward trends from our 'leading' indsutry bodies. Then more self decided doom due to the change in government and what this means for those who are in it for wealth creation. Now the mainstream press are coming for us. The Mail have obviously had their say, then yesterday came the Financial Times with the headline 'This UK recruitment downturn looks set to last - Tellingly for an industry that thrives on bullishness, green shoots are sparse.' The full article is below, and I'm not knocking the article, it's an outsiders balanced look at where the entire industry is, and it backs up statements with statistics. I'd expect nothing less from the FT. But and I repeat, but, no is not the time for runners. We must see the opportunity, and in some cases double down. All of the recruitment agency statistics in this post are global monsters from Hays to Robert Walters, to PageGroup. I'm not saying they are bad businesses, but they are incomparable to most of us. Most agencies are like my agency, small, agile, niche and this is where the opportunity sits. Firstly, whilst others are giving up, talking themselves into a downward spiral and debating what else they could do with their lives. Those of us who are in this for life, know this is a cycle, we also know we have never had better access to tools, people and creativity to open the door of opportunity. 🔎 It does not matter to us if job numbers are falling, because we don't get our business through openly advertised jobs anyway. 🤝 It does not matter to us if candidate counter offers, delays in people accepting and drops outs are on the rise at the 'big boys and girls.' We have taken the time, effort and interest to understand what the real motivation to move is from those people we partner with. We do rely on confidence though, that is where louise lucas gets is bang on, and that is where we have to fight for us. We need those around us who provide support, insight and have our back. No runners. Most importantly we must belive in what we do, and why we do it. Macro trends will come and go, we innovate against these. I know some of my peers have been hurting this year. My own agency Digital 51 has changed more than I could have imagined in the last 12 months, but I could also fill my feed with those who are smashing it at the minute. Those whose agencies are growing, personally I want to hear more of this. If you are struggling and read this, please reach out, I would love to offer any help I can. If not, reach out to those you trust. Remember. No Runners. No runners. I repeat, no runners. https://lnkd.in/e-BvwKKt

Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) is excited to announce the release of it's Largest Direct Hire Firms in the United States: 2024 Update research report. ▶ We estimate that 26 firms generated at least $25 million in US direct hire revenue in 2023. Added together, these firms generated $2.6 billion in such revenue, accounting for 20% of the market, by our estimates. ▶ Market share percentages in this report were calculated by dividing each company’s revenue figure by our estimate of $12.9 billion for the US direct hire market in 2023. ▶ Robert Half is the largest direct hire firm in the US with 3.6% of market share. SIA members can download the full report here >> https://lnkd.in/etny3qsU SIA Analyst: Kevin Chen #Staffing #StaffingIndustry #DirectHire #UnitedStates #Research

A timely assessment of 'the market' from Greg Savage (in which he quotes data from Neil Carberry of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation). Greg strikes his trademark optimistic tone: "Hiring continues, and unemployment is very low. Many skills remain in short supply." And quotes Neil who says the market resembles a 'holding pattern' rather than a recession. This aligns with what we're seeing: orgs are making key (perm/interim) hires and investing in change... *but* decision making is slower than in recent years, and everyone has a firm eye on cost base. Worth a read whether you're in recruitment or just interested in 'the market' dynamics. https://lnkd.in/eQ5sPF7B

"There are 600 recruitment companies unfortunately gone bust in the last 18 months, and there are 32% fewer recruiters than 18 months ago." “It seems that headcount has been about ego and a lot of people have sailed very close to the wind because of ego and no longer exist right now. This is not about ego. It’s about productivity.” This morning I read these two quotes from Sid Barnes which really hit home. The last 18 months have been tough for a lot of agencies, really tough in fairness. I've heard stories of agencies of all sizes going under. The positive though is that what we have been relentless about hammering home - the agencies outperforming the market are those who have prioritised NFI growth whilst reducing their operational costs. The old model of adding more heads to hit targets is a luxury that almost nobody can afford these days and early data from the Firefish Software annual agency survey confirms this. Agencies are forecasting sales growth but not headcount growth at the same level which is refreshing. There are also some really interesting trends on strategic priorities for agency leaders next year which align with revenue growth without headcount growth. Positively, when looking at the Firefish Software customer estate, average revenue per recruiter, per company, is up 39% as users make better use of their data to prioritise profit-making activities and sources. Survey is still open for a couple more weeks too: https://lnkd.in/gyExaRJM