Whilst we have only had one temp fall ill with swine flu so far I thought it prudent to do a little research into what you guys should be doing to prevent further outbreaks in your offices. 

It’s just practical steps we can all take to maintain business continuity within our businesses and those of our clients, thus preventing exposing any part of the workforce to increased risk of infection and illness.

Prevention

To reduce the risk of catching or spreading the virus everyone should:

cover their mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing
after using a tissue throw it away quickly and wash hands regularly with soap and water
clean hard surfaces (like door handles and phone handsets, computer keyboards) frequently with a normal cleaning product.

If you get the flu

Catching swine flu, or influenza A (H1N1), will feel like seasonal flu and the advice given by the NHS is: stay at home and rest and take medicines like aspirin, ibuprofen or paracetamol (following the instructions).

Also drink plenty of fluids and check your symptoms by going to the NHS flu symptom checker. This can be found on – www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk

If you come into contact with someone diagnosed as having Swine flu.

Seek advice by telephoning your GP or NHS Direct (0845 4647). You then need to telephone your office immediately before coming into the office.

“It’s all in the marketing – if you call the economic slowdown a recession, it sounds bad. Call it a Credit Crunch and it sounds like a new ice cream by Ben & Jerry’s.”
Ed Byrne

Interesting times. In fact, fascinating times from an Economic point of view. The newspapers will no doubt continue to be filled with doom and gloom for a while to come yet and there will no doubt be casualties out there with redundancies and companies going in to liquidation.

However, the more I think about it the more I believe this represents a real opportunity for us. We will need to be focussed on what we do and commercial about who we do it with. I believe that there are more positives than negatives for us in the current market and in to 2009. Events are playing to our strengths if we are bold enough to take advantage.

It won’t all be plain sailing and it will take a lot of hard work from all of us, but we should look at this as a real opportunity to excel and to further establish ourselves in our marketplaces. I look forward to the months ahead! Our clients and Candidates alike should do too.

Understandably, recent Elite networking events have centred on the current challenging market we find ourselves operating in. Those who’ve been through this before are almost exclusively stronger for it and the reasons why become obvious when you think about it. On the face of it every bit of economic news coming at us is negative. However, we remain extremely upbeat for the following reasons:

• If Unemployment is rising (which it is) then more Candidates are available and Clients can choose more from a range of possible talent rather than having to settle for anything they can get. In this environment, the more skilful, intelligent recruiter has more scope to select and influence and less room is left for the scatter gun approach which relies on luck – finding the only Candidate through sheer weight of numbers.
• Competitors are retracting and talking themselves down. Other recruiters are already “hunkering down” and reverting to type i.e. even more calls and even less depth. The more they panic and struggle, the harder they will find it to win business. You cannot build relationships when you sound depressed, desperate or both.
• Our Value Proposition. We are clear what we do and how we do it. We take a long term approach, focussing on recruiting people who will genuinely drive our Clients forward. Our retention rates are really something to be proud of, and we can talk to our Clients with confidence about reducing their costs and increasing their profitability. The more Clients focus on getting value from their Suppliers and Partners the better we will fair.
• Cash Management. A lack of Cash and not Profits is what governs whether companies fold or not. Michelle and I are extremely close to this and we are on top of our game. We have a strong relationship with the Bank and we are extremely capable of managing growth and cashflow. I am not sure this is always true of Recruitment Companies.

This of course is a commonly asked question to a recruitment consultant and one which is being bandied around even more readily in these strange and turbulent times.

Well at Asset Resourcing we can only answer that relative to our own experiences and it must be said, it’s been a busy few months. However, as with any shift in the economy, the effects aren’t always instantaneous and perhaps the picture will be a little different in the coming months, but only time will tell.

Certainly we have not had endless conversations with clients declaring a recruitment freeze due to the credit crunch, or even a deluge of Hedge Fund Managers applying for receptionist roles.

Putting it in the proverbial nutshell, it’s a smaller market, with companies a little more cautious, but at the moment at least, there are still some good jobs to be had.

If you are still not convinced, have a look at our current vacancies and get in touch if you find something of interest.

Then you could answer the question “how are you finding the market.”