I’ve read these five words more times than I care to remember when a brown envelope has plopped gracefully on my mat and I’ve raced eagerly to open it to find out whether my job application was successful; then read ‘I regret to inform you that your application was unsuccessful on this occasion’

Unfortunately I’ve had to cope with a big disappointment - but then that’s life.

New research published by Saville and Holdsworth (SHL), the psychometric testing company (8th June 2010) picks this theme up and reveals results that will be a cause for employer concern.

SHL’s research (based on job applicants’ views of applying for work in the retail sector) reveals that the way in which job applicants are handled can leave a long-lasting, damaging effect on that organisation. In other, words this is all about customer care and brand…and getting it right - or in many of the survey respondents’ cases, wrong.

Nearly 50% of the survey respondents told SHL they had a negative view of the organisation because of how their application was handled. 18% were going to take their retail custom elsewhere, 46% were unhappy to receive little or no feedback and 36% had no acknowledgement of their application.

SHL’s Chief Executive, David Leigh was quoted as saying “…unsuccessful job applicants are also potential customers and ignoring them could impact the bottom line,”

In my view this is also an issue for all employers, including the public sector - OK we don’t aim to make a profit, but we do have a community reputation to foster and many job seekers will also be local residents and tax payers. Whilst we are staring into the abyss of significant service retrenchment in the public sector we will still need to employ key skills. Anti public sector press is also hardly helpful to our employer brand image and features in an editorial piece in the MJ magazine of 10 June 2009 (page 2).

Clearly there is resource pressure to dealing with high-volume applicant enquiries, but I believe this research teaches us some salutary lessons. What do you think?

Dean

My old mum used to say to me “you have to be cruel to be kind” – usually when administering iodine to a bloodied knee, or convincing me that swallowing cod-liver oil (or some other semi-noxious substance) really was good for my health.

The analogy of my formative years can roughly translate to the contemporaneous age of impending austerity - the public sector is poised on the brink of swallowing, what appears to be, some rather nasty medicine.

But, on reflection, my mum had a point - and the medicine actually did me some good. In the traditions of a SWOT analysis – the challenge ahead provides enormous opportunity, as well as threat.

Sir William Beveridge (see previous blog post - the Beveridge Curve) founder of the welfare state (The Beveridge report 1942) realised that his socio-economic model whilst addressing many societal problems also created another set of issues…in particular the creation of a dependency culture in people.

Sutton’s Chief Executive, Paul Martin, comments on this societal concern in MJ Magazine (page 13, 13 May 2010) in an article titled ‘Why independence is key’. Paul advocates the transformation of service delivery for vulnerable adults to promote independence and to redefine the social contract between the individual, family and state – making a shift to a ‘liberating’ relationship, rather than a ‘dependency’ relationship. It’s well worth a read.

Shifting embedded behaviour is not to be under-estimated in terms of the scale of effort required, whether in society or within organisations. Equally, reducing the UK’s deficit is also a daunting task. But the situation, by necessity (see previous blog post – Necessity the Mother of Invention) does provide the momentum for real change and the cuts, if managed well, could produce better outcomes for our citizens. Without this ‘necessity’ it’s arguable that we’d all carry on in the same old way.

Pass me the cod-liver oil…

Dean