Tag: Hiring top talent

1. The Hidden Costs Of Not Recruiting

   March 18, 2025 9:19 am

   

   Hidden Costs of Leaving a Vacancy Unfilled in Your Business

   Recruiting the right talent is a key driver of business success, but what happens when an organisation delays or fails to fill a vacant role? Many UK businesses underestimate the true cost of an unfilled position, yet the impact can be substantial, affecting productivity, revenue, employee morale, customer satisfaction and overall business performance.

    

   The True Cost of a Vacancy

   Lost Productivity

   When a role remains unfilled, its workload often falls on existing employees. This can lead to inefficiencies, delays, and an overall decline in productivity. In cases where the role is highly specialised, the lack of expertise can create bottlenecks, slowing down project delivery and strategic initiatives.

   Financial Losses

   The financial impact of a vacancy varies depending on the role and industry, but it is often higher than many businesses anticipate.

   • If the role directly contributes to revenue (such as sales or business development), the company risks losing potential income.
   • Delays in service delivery or product development can result in missed business opportunities and dissatisfied customers.
   • To compensate for the vacancy, businesses may rely on temporary staff or pay overtime to existing employees, increasing payroll costs.

   According to research from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), the UK economy loses up to £39 billion annually due to unfilled vacancies.

   Declining Employee Morale and Increased Turnover

   An unfilled role often means additional pressure on the remaining workforce. If employees consistently have to take on extra responsibilities, it can lead to stress, burnout, and dissatisfaction. Over time, this may increase staff turnover, compounding the issue by creating further vacancies.

   In competitive industries where skilled workers are in high demand, delays in recruitment can also create a negative perception of the business, making it harder to attract and retain top employees.

   Damage to Customer Satisfaction and Brand Reputation

   In customer-facing industries, a lack of staff can mean longer response times, reduced service quality, and a drop in overall customer satisfaction. This can lead to negative reviews, lost clients, and a weakened brand reputation. According to a study by PwC, 32% of customers would stop doing business with a company after just one bad experience. Dissatisfied customers tend to share their stories and experience with others, which can lead to an even greater level of discontentment with customers who may not have even had a bad experience themselves.

   Opportunity Costs and Competitive Disadvantage

   Leaving a vacancy unfilled for too long can put a company at a competitive disadvantage. While competitors with fully staffed teams continue to innovate and grow, businesses struggling with talent gaps may fall behind. Strategic initiatives may be delayed, and the company may miss out on opportunities simply because they lack the personnel to execute them.

   How to Minimise the Impact of Vacant Roles

   While vacancies are sometimes unavoidable, businesses can take proactive steps to reduce the negative impact:

   • Get Ahead– Wherever possible try to keep ahead of any recruitment needs and have a prepared plan for recruiting.
   • Build a Strong Talent Pipeline– Engage with potential candidates before vacancies arise to ensure a faster hiring process. Treating all candidates with respect, timely feedback and leaving them with a positive experience can help to build your organisation’s employer reputation within your sector.
   • Leverage Recruitment Agencies– Build relationships and partnerships with specialist recruiters that can help fill roles faster and with better-quality candidates.
   • Offer Competitive Salaries and Benefits– A compelling remuneration package can attract top talent and reduce time-to-hire. Offering the current market rate may not be enough to engage the interest of top performers.
   • Focus on Employee Retention & Your Core Business – Reducing staff turnover minimises vacancies in the first place and recruitment is a specialist task. If you are stronger in other areas of your business, focus on that and work with people who can deliver a first class recruitment experience.

   The cost of leaving a role vacant can extend far beyond just losing a member of a team. It can stretch into declining productivity, lost revenue, increased staff turnover, slowed growth as well as reputational damage and a negative impact on customers. Organisations should take a proactive approach to recruitment, using the most suitable techniques to appoint strong candidates to ensure competitiveness, efficiency and customer satisfaction are maintained and enhanced.

   For more insights on effective recruitment strategies, visit Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), explore industry reports from CIPD or contact Ocean Edge Executive Search, the recruiters dedicated to the social housing sector.

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2. Outsourcing recruitment, is it worth it?

   March 21, 2023 10:55 am

   

   “Working together”

   And what to look for when considering working with an external partner

    

   With budgets increasingly squeezed, organisations are having to make tough decisions on which services to outsource or fulfil inhouse. Using an inhouse team to recruit rather than outsourcing to a recruitment agency might sound a quick way to save money but it may not prove cost effective for all your recruitment in terms of time and money spent.

   As well as ongoing salary costs, internal teams also need constant investment in terms of training and development, holiday, sick pay etc. Out sourcing means you can tap into the experience and resources of a professional team as and when needed, without the ongoing costs or the need to manage or develop the individuals involved.

   Specialist recruitment agencies offer a valuable resource and can deliver real value for money when compared with inhouse teams by:

   • Providing access to a much larger pool of talent, including passive candidates who may not actively be job seeking (and so would have missed a job advert). This greatly increases the chances of finding the right candidate for the job, particularly hard to fill roles.
   • Handling the entire recruitment process, from advertising, producing recruitment packs, dealing with applicants, sorting interviews to handling the offer and let downs. This allows the HR team and the hiring manager to focus on other tasks.
   • Demonstrating expertise, to ensure the right candidate is recruited. Highly experienced and skilled recruiters with a deep understanding of the sector can quickly identify the most suitable candidate and advise on salary expectations and market conditions.
   • Reducing the risk of hiring the wrong person (and the resulting lost productivity and wasted recruitment and training costs), by using rigorous screening processes and sector knowledge to ensure that candidates have the necessary skills and experience.
   • Providing flexibility, with the ability to tap into the expertise and services of an agency as and when needed, which is particularly useful during periods of growth or downsizing.
   • Increasing brand awareness, through a targeted advertising campaign, professional recruitment packs, via social media and by engaging with people in the sector, an agency can help increase brand awareness and improve the reputation of an organisation.
   • Working in partnership, well respected and successful agencies ensure that HR and the hiring manager are engaged throughout the recruitment process in order to effectively work on behalf of an organisation and ensure its cultures and values are represented at all times.

   Unfortunately not all recruitment companies are equal and you need to ensure any agency you work with understands your organisation and is able to recruit to the roles you need. The agency and its staff should illustrate a solid track record of delivering results within your sector and have a proven technique for sourcing the candidates you need. Make sure you get an insight into their recruitment and marketing strategy before appointing them, so that you can make sure their approach is going to be suitable for your business and the roles you need recruiting to.

   It is also worth remembering that this agency will be representing your company and your brand so you need to be confident that the individuals working on your behalf will be professional and effective ambassadors. Often the consultant that is your contact in the agency may not be the person actually engaging with potential candidates. You need to be comfortable that the individuals in the agency recruiting on your behalf will benefit your team.

   Choosing a well-respected, specialist recruitment agency should pay dividends in terms of saving you time and money and enabling you to attract and recruit the best candidates.

3. How to stop candidates logging off and tuning out

   May 13, 2022 11:51 am

   

   How to stop candidates logging off and tuning out

   Social media has transformed the way we live, work and communicate.  But with more connections taking place on screen than in person are we in danger of losing the art of conversation?

   From a recruitment perspective we are increasingly hearing from candidates who feel disengaged simply because of the amount of online ‘noise’. They feel constantly bombarded with communications promising them their ‘ideal job’ that in reality are often totally unsuitable roles. And the result is simply making candidates lose interest.

   Too many hirers are relying on generic approaches to attract candidates, but these no longer work in an online world where there is simply so much content and competition to attract attention. Without investing time and energy into really knowing the industry and actually talking to people and getting to know your next recruits, potential candidates are being missed.

   But we believe that nothing beats building real person to person relationships.

   Organisations in all sectors need to get better at getting to know their potential next recruits.  Anyone hiring needs to build and develop relationships in order to understand if the organisation, the role and the individual would be a good fit that would enable both sides to achieve their future goals. Candidates’ needs, strengths, motivators and countless other nuances need to be considered to fill a vacancy effectively; issues that are much better dealt with in person not on screen.

   Ask yourself, as an organisation would you offer a contract to a supplier who sent you a speculative message on a social media site or who posted an advert? Would you as a talented individual in your sector invest time applying for a role that was pumped to you and countless others via social media or online job adverts?  Probably not! A lot more work has to go into building and developing that relationship. And person to person conversations are a vital part of that process.

   If your recruitment methods are falling on deaf ears and you would like to talk to us please get in touch or call us on 023 8000 1153.  Or, if you are considering a career move but want a targeted, managed approach please contact us for a real conversation!

4. New affordable homes mean new opportunities

   November 27, 2019 12:08 pm

   This month saw some exciting news for the affordable housing sector and, in particular, for 14 housing associations who have won contracts to manage new build homes for Legal & General. With these newly announced management deals comes plenty of opportunities as we move towards 2020.

   L&G’s for-profit social housing provider, L&G Affordable Homes, will be investing in 3,500 homes a year – a much needed boost for affording housing stock.

   In the past decade the country’s ageing population has left many young people unable to get on to the property ladder as family homes are occupied by older couples or single people. This is partially responsible for the 1.1 million households on the housing waiting list in England.

   New homes are needed to close the gap. L&G’s innovative solution involves them building high quality, module homes on land they own and leasing these to affordable housing sector partners as an investment.

   Earlier this year it put out a tender for housing association partners to manage its properties. These have now been named.

   The first L&G affordable housing tenants have already moved into schemes in Falmouth, Cornwall, and in Croydon, London.

   L&G is not the only big investor in affordable housing schemes; more have seen the potential as it is estimated three million social homes will need to be built in the next 20 years.

   This presents an incredible opportunity for the affordable housing sector to win contracts for the management of more of these much needed schemes. And with that opportunity comes the necessity to consider additional resourcing within your business.

   We are already talking to clients about new investments in affordable housing and how this will affect their staffing needs.

   Back in 2016 we recruited the Managing Director at one of the country’s leading modular housing factories and in 2018 we also brought in a team leader there. The factory was among the first companies in the UK to use modular building for new homes and have now built more than 1,000.

   Both of the professionals we recruited came from outside the industry, but we identified their transferrable skills and supported them through the process to their new careers. They now play a key role in making the factory a success.

   If you are looking to recruit within your affordable housing business then we can help. Ocean Edge has nearly 20 years experience helping the affordable housing sector find the top candidates.

   We have teams in Southampton and London who are ready to help you recruit to your organisation. Find out more about our recruitment consultancy services or call 023 8000 1153 or email info@oceanedge.biz.

5. How to secure the best candidates

   October 9, 2019 8:01 am

   The best candidates are in high demand whatever your industry. If you want to interview top talent and add to the expertise in your business then here are some simple steps to follow to optimise your recruitment process:

   Be clear about your expectations

   What skills and experience does your ideal candidate have? Make sure these expectations are clearly set out in job descriptions and adverts so that only the right candidates apply.

   This will save you time sifting through the resumes of people who don’t make the grade or at least make it easier to discount them.

   Look at the talent within your business

   Recruiting from within your business will save time and money. It’s much easier to bring someone up to speed when they know how your organisation works.

   That’s not to mention the impact on staff motivation, morale and loyalty when they see opportunities to progress.

   Share opportunities on your website

   The best candidates will be the ones already interested in your organisation. They will have been looking at your website to research your business and the type of opportunities available. Make sure they find the information they need.

   Add a dedicated ‘work with us’ or ‘job vacancies’ page, and update this regularly with new opportunities. Also use this page to shout about the benefits of working for your organisation to attract the best candidates. Here are some ideas about how to attract and retain top employees.

   Promote your business opportunities on social media

   Once you have perfected the vacancies pages on your website make sure you share them on your social media channels, particularly LinkedIn. If the right candidate is in the market for a new job this is where they will be looking for career opportunities.

   It’s also worth promoting jobs on Twitter and Facebook because of their broad audience. Your followers don’t just include customers, but also job seekers within your industry and region.

   Bring in a specialist recruitment agency

   In order to secure the best candidates you need a thorough application and interview process. A specialist recruitment agency will be able to create a bespoke recruitment campaign for your business, from advertising and headhunting to shortlisting. They may even already know candidates that fit the bill.

   Find out more how a specialist recruitment agency can help you find the best employees to grow your business.

   Ocean Edge has offices in London and Southampton offering recruitment consultancy services to the affordable housing sector.

   For more information about how we can support your organisation with external and internal recruitment get in contact: call 023 8000 1153 or email info@oceanedge.biz.