Olga Johnson will be sharing highlights from her week, offering some insightful advice, and providing her perspective on a range of issues relating to the not-for-profit sector and current affairs.This is my last blog for CR Search & Selection! From spring 2010, CR Search & Selection will be no more and the new organisation Harris Hill Executive Search will be launched officially.
I am not sorry to say goodbye to 2009. Although we came through the recession successfully, it was a very sad year for me personally with the death of my Mother. Her absence from the family has made us all realise just how important (good) Mothers are in keeping family values alive and helping with grand children and great grand children. Most parents are brilliant, but the minority that are not make a long lasting, devastating impact on their kids. Charities that address behavioural problems and poor parenting before they become issues that HM Prisons have to sort out are to be applauded!
NEW WAYS TO WORK
Thanks to the benefits of IT and home VPN links we were able to operate effectively throughout the Christmas and New Year snow. I am amazed that some employers are still resisting requests from staff to work from home. Unless you are in a front facing role, such as providing care to patients, most roles can be performed remotely and there can be substantial cost savings. By adopting flexible home working practices, we were able to reduce our office space by fifty per cent last year.
MIXED FORTUNES FOR THE CHARITY AND PUBLIC SECTORS
The job market is showing positive signs with more movement in the charity sector at all levels and more demand for interim people. We have been meeting some really impressive Officers coming out of the Armed Services, so I was not surprised to see that the RNLI and Guide Dogs appointed new CEO’s from this sector.
The anticipated impact of public sector cuts next year is extremely worrying. Implications for the charity sector are potentially serious, particularly for organisations that are managing public sector contracts. I hope my fears of reduced fee income and more job losses are not realised.
MOVING FORWARD
The merger with Harris Hill has proved to be a great success and our new website is almost ready. The team is working really well and our new Executive Researcher has already started to make a positive impact on our ability to source candidates from a range of sectors. The contract with Job Centre Plus is growing fast and appears to be a growth market. Good for our business, but not so good for those losing jobs.
To end on a positive note my son and I are off to Kenya on March 1st. After a packed itinerary (visits to an animal rescue centre and Lamu, plus a safari) we are visiting a Street Kids project in Nairobi funded by AMREF (one of our clients) and a school in the Kibera Slum - so it will be a be a real mix of experiences!
HERE'S TO THE FUTURE
I will sign off now and thank you to all our clients and candidates who have supported CR Search & Selection over the years. I look forward to continuing to work with you all in my new capacity as Managing Director of Harris Hill Executive Search, and to continuing to be involved in the charity sector through my various trustee and voluntary activities! Read more » No Comments »
MORE GREEN SHOOTS?
We continue to be very busy with even more interesting UK based roles and a steady stream with a global brief. We also continue to be pleased with the high standard of applicants we are getting for our trustee roles. A sign of things to come? I do hope so!
HEALTHPROM
I have just become a Trustee of a small charity called HealthProm who help vulnerable women and children in former Soviet Union countries and Northern Afghanistan. We had a brilliant event last week to celebrate 25 years of operations, and some of the women who run projects gave presentations about their work. Northern Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of maternal and newborn death. It was amazing to hear about the commitment of these women who often work in dangerous situations at great risk to themselves. We are so fortunate in the West with all our equality legislation, and these accounts renewed our determination to increase the levels of basic healthcare to these women in spite of cultural barriers that often prevent it.
CLIMATE CHANGE - WE MUST ACT NOW!
Last week I was really pleased to be invited to a conference about climate change and its impact on our food. The speaker was Lester Brown, a well respected expert on food security and climate change. I was not surprised to hear him speak at some length about factory farming and the diversion of grain from the production of food for us to animal feed. The issues around factory farming are seriously depressing and it's alarming that our high fat, high salt western diet has contributed to the worldwide obesity crisis while thousands still starve.
But perhaps the most disturbing development is the purchasing of huge swathes of land in Africa by countries, includig China, for growing bio fuel. One delegate questioned the impact of this policy in the event of a famine in the host country. We were told that these 'contracts' would be enforced by the army to prevent the use of the land for food production.
This will be a serious issue for INGOs and one can only feel repulsion at the thought of people dying so that bio fuel can be grown. There will, no doubt, be some very radical changes to how INGOs see their role with increasing emphasis on advocacy and robust negotiations with the governments involved in buying and selling the land.
The speaker must have sensed the despair in the audience and left us on a 'high' note telling us that all Europe's electricity could come from solar power from the deserts in North Africa. Better be nice to Colonel Gadaffi then!
(Lester's latest book 'Mobilisation to save Civilisation' is published by the Earth Policy Institute)
A FIRST FOR US
To move to another topic, we pitched for a new assignment this week and found the representative from the HR department extremely unpleasant. For most of the meeting, he tried to undermine us and for the first time in 23 years we called the client later in the day to advise them that we were withdrawing from the pitch because the chemistry was not right. It's so important to have trust and respect when you work with a client and we were not comfortable. A difficult decision, but appropriate. I hope it never happens again!
The merger with Harris Hill is making good progress and we have some brilliant plans for a new corporate identity that reflects the breadth and depth of our services. We are very excited about this! Read more » No Comments »
TOO BUSY TO BLOG!
Over the last month we have been unbelievably busy, so all our time and energy has been spent on meeting deadlines. The blog had to take a back seat!
During the month there were various issues that would have merited comment, so I have listed them just for the record
NEWS IN BRIEF
•The BBC indicated that they would invite the BNP to appear on Question Time. WHAT!! In my view, they should be arrested not allowed on our screens.
•The Kenyan drought worsened, but our trip next year will not be in drought stricken areas so we will raise funds on our return from various long suffering relatives and friends to help support the charities there.
•The Shaw Trust are dropping out of government contracts because they are unable to secure full cost recovery. We are working with JobCentre Plus who have very limited budgets, and there could be a temptation to not work with them, or to provide a less than comprehensive service to their clients. However, we believe in providing a first-class service to all those with whom we work, and although we do not make any money from our work with the JobCentre, it is important that we provide unemployed people with professional support when they need it most.
•David Cameron seemed to be doing well until he indicated that the hunting with dogs legislation would be repealed. Any positive thoughts I may have had about him and his party have gone!
•Contrary to many I applaud the award of the Nobel peace prize to President Obama. I believe he has changed the perception of the US globally and long may this continue. It was badly needed and long overdue.
A SMALL CHARITY DOING BIG THINGS
I am now a trustee of Healthprom, a tiny charity funding programmes in northern Afghanistan and former Soviet Union countries to reduce numbers of women dying in childbirth and infant mortality. The incidence is particularly high in Afghanistan. To avoid any political implications I shall say no more! If you'd like to know more about our work, please visit www.healthprom.org
The month ended positively with more work coming in so onwards and upwards! Read more » No Comments »
IT MATTERS!
After a brilliant, sunny bank holiday with fantastic walks and meals outdoors I returned to the office refreshed and raring to go. Just as well because we were immediately plunged into massive IT problems for the next eight hours. It's probably a good thing occasionally because it brings home how much we now depend on IT for every aspect of our lives. All is well now but to be out of contact was scary!
What did I learn? Hold on to the fax machine!
SUPPORT THE NHS
Wednesday was an early start (0530hrs) to accompany my youngest stepson to University College Hospital for surgery to correct a cranio-facial condition called Crouzon Syndrome. This was in the middle of the attacks on the NHS and (unfairly in my opinion) comparisons with the US healthcare system. The NHS has been amazing for us and it is disturbing that most of the publicity focussed on higher cancer survival rates under the US scheme rather than the fundamental problem that there are still millions of people in the US without access to affordable healthcare - and people live longer in the UK than the US - so there!
What did I learn? Get ALL the facts before you draw conclusions.
LET IT RAIN
As a treat to celebrate the success of my stepson's final surgery after 20 years (he looks fabulous now) we are going to Kenya next year. In his capacity as Chairman of the Kenyan Tourist Board, the safari leader, whom we picked at random from the net, was quoted in a Sunday Times article over the weekend about the serious drought in Kenya. In response to my email he assured us that the rains due in November will help and that we would not be taking up scarce resources. In fact our trip will help to pay much needed wages so we are going head. We've not been on an eco safari before. Fingers crossed for rain in November!
GREAT RATES FOR CLIENTS
As we are continuing to be busy in the office we are advertising regularly and it is really noticeable, and hardly surprising that our clients prefer the lower costs of online advertising. We are getting just as much response from online as offline media and since we joined Harris Hill have been able to negotiate some excellent deals. We frequently wonder how local newspapers survive the reduction in advertising revenue. We have also noticed that some national dailies charge in excess of £1200 for some online media packages. Outrageous! A friend visiting mid-week works for a county newspaper group and during a conversation about falling advertising revenues told us that the most consistent income stream is from hookers advertising their services in the classified pages. They also pay in cash!!
What did I learn? Help often comes from the most unexpected places! Read more » No Comments »