Fifty years ago, Danone CEO Antione Riboud announced in his famous ‘Marseilles speech’ that “corporate responsibility does not end at the factory gate”. At the time, this was a profoundly unfashionable view, with most corporates happy to admit their overwhelming aim was to make money.
Fast forward half a century, and there’s hardly a brand that isn’t much more vocal about purpose than profits
Sometimes, it’s easy to be cynical about companies’ claims of social values. Let’s face it, there are some obvious commercial reasons for boasting about your sustainability achievements or signaling your support for this or that fashionable cause. But there are increasing signs that some companies may be out of step with the views and opinions of their public.
Budweiser and Adidas are just two global brands that have experienced a backlash recently by misjudging the mood of consumers.
Now WhiteCrow Research has produced research that suggests some companies may not fully understand the sentiment among candidates either.
We canvassed 210 professionals across multiple sectors, asking them about their ‘values’ and whether these align with those of their employers. While we didn’t discover a wholesale disconnect, we did identify a surprising level of apathy on the very issues that the most prominent companies are most enthusiastically promoting.
Let’s Take a Look at the Results, Question by Question.
Question 1
Do you know your Company’s Mission Statement without looking?
A positive score of 73% might not seem too bad at first glance. But try flipping it around. The fact is, over a quarter of respondents don’t know what their employer is trying to achieve in the world. And that’s only if we take the results at face value. We didn’t call people’s bluff by asking them to recite the relevant mission statement.
Given that such a large number are ignorant of their employer’s stated purpose, one can assume they don’t much care about it either. In other words, they show up to do their job and make some money.
There’s nothing wrong with that per see but it does have implications for talent acquisition strategy. In short, should TA leaders be making such a big play on culture and purpose when this does not seem to be that important in candidates’ minds?
Again, we’re not saying companies shouldn’t have a mission statement, just that it may not be as important to their audience – consumers, candidates, and investors – as is sometimes assumed.
Do you know your Company’s Values without looking?
These results are even more sobering, with close to one-third saying they don’t know their company’s values.
Remember, these are never difficult to find. Often, they’re on page one of a company’s website. You’d certainly think you’d know them if you worked there.
Of course, it’s important not to rush to conclusions. The group who said ‘no’ are not necessarily immoral people who only care about filthy lucre.
Probably, they’re very decent sorts who simply think of their employer as a business rather than a moral agent. In any case, most corporate values are notable for their imprecision.
More than one well-known brand proclaims “We do what’s right”.
That’s a fine sentiment, but it’s unlikely to make any consumer change their shopping habits, and – as our results suggest – it won’t cut much ice with candidates either.
And companies are right to be vague. It’s when they get specific that they get into trouble. Just ask Walt Disney or Ben & Jerry’s. But as long as corporate values remain ill defined, they’re a poor tool for TA specialists. Far better to appeal to candidates with money and career development opportunities.
Now, this is interesting. What are the two social issues that most companies have been relentlessly promoting for the last ten years? Diversity and climate change, no? And yet these two issues appear to rank lowest on people’s list of priorities. Overall, just 14% said climate change was their most urgent concern and a paltry 6% were awarded a top place for diversity.
In Europe, not a single person ranked diversity first.
How to explain this? To be clear, these results do not demonstrate that respondents are unconcerned about either diversity or climate change. However, they do suggest candidates are unconvinced we’re heading for imminent climate catastrophe and are ambivalent on such concepts as unconscious bias or critical race theory.
Instead, they prioritize more obviously urgent issues such as bringing health and education to billions of underprivileged people.
The only geography where the pattern is noticeably different is the United States. Here, the numbers opting for diversity are much higher. This might reflect the fact that academic theory on race and gender is more advanced in the US and/or that ideas which originate in US Universities more rapidly migrate to the public square. The murder of George Floyd will also enhance people’s concerns about racism and lack of diversity in certain sectors.
Overall, though, we have a global candidate pool that seems out of step with the most publicly proclaimed concerns of global employers. It’s not that companies are doing nothing in health or education, it’s just that they don’t tend to promote these initiatives with the same gusto, they bring to diversity stats or emissions reduction figures.
A while back, we published a piece called “Money Talks” which provided compelling evidence candidates are still mostly motivated by pay. Our research on corporate values serves as a useful companion piece. Yes, most candidates are caring people with a well-developed social conscience.
But the issues they care most about aren’t necessarily the ones you might imagine. They’re also ambivalent about whether their employer shares their opinion on these issues. Often, in fact, they simply want an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.
To discuss any of the issues covered in this Article, or to obtain additional information on Whitecrow Research’s Talent Intelligence capabilities, please contact us:
Why diversity stats are less important than you think.
A couple of weeks ago, we delivered a report for a major consumer goods the company which wanted to know what its competitors are doing in the diversity space.
As one of the world’s leading talent intelligence providers, we do plenty of such reports. But what was unusual about this one was our client’s relative lack of interest in statistics. Naturally, they were interested to know how their diverse representation stacked up against industry averages, but they realized this wasn’t the be-all and end-all of the issue.
And they’re right.
Diversity statistics are a snapshot in time. They tell you how you’re doing today, not how you’ll fare tomorrow. They also fail to tell a story. Say your stats are looking good – did you fluke it or are you actually doing something right? If so, what?
In any case, diversity stats are for HR leaders. Shouldn’t the main thrust of DEI activity be minority groups themselves? Rather than obsessing over, say, percentages of female leaders, companies need to be asking themselves about the everyday working experience they offer women at every level.
Which leads us back to our client…We like to think they’re happy with their report.
We reckon we did a very thorough job – but only because the company so skillfully defined the parameters of our research.
Yes, they wanted to know figures, but they also wanted to learn about support groups, cross-industry alliances, training, language, schools outreach, university programs, personal testimony from minority groups, speeches by senior leaders, C-suite support, company ethos and a whole range of other insights that don’t show up on a spreadsheet…
The best DEI leaders know that diversity is a cultural issue. Only by understanding the activity of fellow corporates and society at large can any one company craft an EVP which genuinely caters to all its employees.
Achieve that, and the stats look after themselves.
As the world’s largest sourcing and recruitment company, WhiteCrow works with clients across multiple geographies and sectors. So a brief glance at what we’re working on ought to provide a clue to what’s going on in the wider market…
It’s official. Updated growth figures from May show that Germany – supposed a powerhouse of the European economy – is in recession. Plenty of other countries around the world are only a percentage point or two away from the same fate. ▪ But whereas previous global recessions have been characterized by high unemployment, labour levels worldwide are actually very good. The the jobless rate in the UK is at a historically low 3.8% while in the US it’s even lower at 3.7%. That’s good for WhiteCrow because it means companies need our expert advice on finding and engaging increasingly scarce candidates. ▪ So it’s not surprising that the number of jobs, we worked on during the last quarter dipped only very slightly, down from 2,420 to 2,408. Average jobs per the month was 802, a statistically insignificant change on last quarter’s figure of 807. ▪ Our Investment Banking and Energy clients are keeping us particularly busy. One well-known bank has 109 jobs active with us at the moment, while a global oil & gas client notched up 111 requisitions over the last quarter.
That surely speaks to the relatively buoyant stock prices across the financial services and energy sectors. ▪ But even if companies have lots of jobs to fill, worsening economic conditions overall are leading to tighter recruitment budgets. In other words, TA leaders need to do more with less. That’s also reflected in our data. With 23% of projects being research related (up from 18% in Q1) it seems recruiters are hungry for data and insights that can help them hire better, faster and smarter.
Covid. Cost of living. Ukraine. Whatever your view on the big issues of the day, we can all agree these are unpredictable times. That’s a nightmare for workforce planning. So now more than ever Talent teams need to be across the numbers. Below, we share a selection of economic charts and comment briefly on their implications for recruitment.
Inflation
With Fed Chairman Jerome Powell recently commenting that the fight against US inflation “has a long way to go”, we thought we’d take a look at what’s happening to prices across the world.
▪ In many cases, the graph is going in the right direction. But only very slowly. In the UK, core inflation is actually up. But weren’t we told inflation was largely the result of the energy price hike that followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? Energy prices have been falling for sometimes, yet consumers are still struggling to afford everyday items.
It increasingly looks like there could have been other factors at play such as the huge amounts of quantitative easing we’ve seen over the last few years.
▪ Economists can argue about the precise causes, but if Jerome Powell is right, we can expect candidates to be pushing hard for wage increases. Younger candidates will be worried they can’t pay their bills, but even highly paid senior candidates – many of whom will be homeowners experiencing massive hikes in their mortgage payments – are likely to take a tough negotiating stance.
▪ Since COVID, the number of people who are neither at work nor looking for work has increased in nearly every country around the world. ▪ There are lots of suggested reasons for this economic inactivity. But one that should concern TA leaders more than any other is an increase in mental health cases. In the UK, monthly sickness benefit claims have doubled post-pandemic and mental health is behind 41% of them. ▪ That begs the question of why so many people are struggling with their mental
health. Could it be that the lockdown itself is the cause? It’s interesting to note that Sweden and Japan – neither of which countries instituted a strict lockdown – occupy two of the bottom three places in our graph. ▪ Regardless, TA professionals – many of who have done such great work nurturing inclusive, neurodiverse workplaces – have a key role to play in tackling the epidemic of mental health cases. Otherwise, the recovery from COVID could be long and slow for everyone.
Above we have listed the top 10 most diverse countries according to Stanford professor James Fearon’s peer-reviewed analysis. ▪ What is interesting is that none of these countries are particularly recognizable as an offshoring centre. Maybe South Africa, but that only creeps in at 9th for linguistic diversity. You’d think that with offshoring and diversity being such key components of most companies’ global expansion strategies, there’d be a more visibly joined-up approach to both issues.
To be fair, two popular outsourcing locations are India and the Philippines, each of which ranks quite highly on Fearon’s lists. But other well-known outsourcing hubs don’t fare so well. These include China (155th by ethnicity and 148th by language), Poland (164th and 178th) and Vietnam (135th and 122nd). ▪ Obviously, a lot of the countries on Fearon’s lists are riven by conflict, but others – such as Togo or Zambia – are probably worth a look for big companies looking to globalize operations without denting their diversity statistics.
This was said to us (with an eye roll) by a senior planning professional at a well-known consumer goods company. She was referring to the difficulty of getting anything is done in her heavily matrixed organization. The reason she was talking to us at all was because she’d become so exasperated by her employer’s crisscrossing reporting lines that she’d decided to move to another company. This demonstrates a huge operational risk. In short, the complexity of the design. Of course,
the bigger a company becomes, the more elaborate its structure will necessarily be. But too much overthinking and you can drive the best people away. The first line of defence here is Talent Acquisition. By understanding how organizational design affects the disposition of employees, TA leaders can help craft genuinely people-centric structures. These, in turn, will drive better business outcomes and higher talent retention rates.
Like any industry, recruitment has its lexicon of odd words and phrases. The best of these serve to illuminate complex topics; the worst merely confuse and obfuscate. As for the rest, well, let’s take a closer look…
Time was, you never heard this word outside of a mathematics seminar. Then, a few years ago, it slipped into the corporate conversation as a variant on ‘version’ or ‘case’. Now it’s everywhere. Like Japanese knotwood. The problem is, it’s usually used wrongly. The word actually has two meanings. One is the repetition of a process. The other is a mathematical procedure that is adjusted for the results of a previous application. So a sentence like “This is the third iteration of
the report” would be wrong – there’s no the process being repeated and certainly not one with learnings applied from previous applications. Of course, there’s also iteration’s evil sister ‘iterative’ – a word much beloved by recruiters – but we’ll leave that for another newsletter. In summary, iteration doesn’t mean version. Version means version. Let’s use that.
Contact
To discuss any of the issues raised in this month’s newsletter or to explore how WhiteCrow Research can help with any of your talent insight and recruitment needs, please contact us.
In the latest of a series of occasional dialogues with senior business leaders, we speak to ELENI KITRA, Founder & CEO of Dubai-based consultancy PeopleFirst, about diversity and inclusion and how her organization helps others unleash the power of people.
After a distinguished career in business development and team leadership with some of the world’s leading tech brands, Eleni decided to deploy her considerable experience to helping others – both individuals and large, global companies. An engaging, passionate, high-energy presence, Eleni spoke to us about her career, her consulting work, and the role of D&I in transforming corporate culture.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation and a video link to the full-length interview.
MATTHEW PITT:I’m delighted to be joined today by Eleni Kitra, who is an author, a speaker, and a thought leader across many human capital subjects including, perhaps most importantly, diversity and inclusion. She is also the founder and CEO of PeopleFirst, a Dubai-based consultancy that helps clients build and foster inclusive organizations. Eleni, welcome.
ELENI KITRA: Thank you for hosting me. Great to meet you and have this inspiring conversation.
MATTHEW PITT:Likewise. To begin with, I wonder if you could tell us a little about your background and explain why, after a long and successful career, you decided to start PeopleFirst.
ELENI KITRA: Okay, so I’m not sure that everybody wants to hear my story, but for me, its important to remember how I completely transformed my life, especially in the last 10 years. For more than 30 years, I lived and worked in the corporate world, usually in setting up new business units and business development roles in tech-enabled or tech-driven companies like Sony, Multichoice, and Omnicom Group. For the last 10 years, I was with Facebook here in Dubai, working with global clients, and I was also doing a number of things that had to do with the community, internally and externally. I was always very much interested in this sort of initiative, but I also came to realize that, at heart, I am an entrepreneur, and this was what was driving me, this was why I kept on setting up things from scratch!
And behind everything I was doing, I recognized my passion for all things to do with people, culture, diversity, and inclusion.
I came to this realization for a number of reasons, especially when I was with Meta based out of Dubai. Along with my business role, I was highly involved at a global and regional level, with our DEI and Culture & People Strategy. Especially in the Middle East, a region close to my heart, where I first realized the importance of Diversity and inclusion and the need to understand and cater to minority groups. As I was also one of them, I felt I had to do something about this. That’s how my transformation came about – leaving corporate life after 30 years and setting up a company focusing on inclusion and inclusive leadership.
MATTHEW PITT:Thank you. I want to pick up on the word ‘inclusion’. It’s a word that is often bolted on to the word diversity – in job titles, for example – but I wonder how often it is understood or considered in its own right. So, I’d like to ask you what is your definition of inclusion and why is it so important.
ELENI KITRA: Well, I think, you know, it’s not that difficult a word to understand but it’s sometimes difficult to measure. Diversity is easy to measure. You decide what kind of people you want from where by using specific criteria. And either you recruit them or you don’t. So diversity is clear. It’s a visually tangible aspect and you can say ‘I’m good at that’ or at least ‘I’m making an effort and can see the progress…’
On the other hand, inclusion is not that easy because it’s about making people feel comfortable in the environment you are setting up in the workplace. Are you helping these people? Do they trust you as their employer and are they in the best shape to communicate and collaborate and be progressive and really efficient? That’s something you don’t easily measure or at least you need a long-term approach to measuring it.
Here is a simple example I like to use. Imagine you’re invited to a party, but you need to be able to dance. For me, dancing at the party and being yourself is what inclusion is all about. If you’re dancing, you’re included!
Another way of looking at it is that there are countries that are, by definition, very diverse. I live in a region where there are over 100 different ethnicities. But this doesn’t mean all of the people will feel included in the place they are living and working. So, inclusion is allowing people to be their best selves in a workplace or an ecosystem. And then we need to take care of any biases which may kick in and avoid sticking to the differences when we actually need to focus on people’s qualities and the value they bring to the table.
Measuring success: On the difference between diversity and inclusion
MATTHEW PITT:Another thing that you raise in your work is this idea of the four Cs – curiosity, collaboration, courage, and commitment. I wonder if you could tell us a little about the importance of these qualities and why they are so vital to a successful DNA strategy.
ELENI KITRA: I always start from the curiosity piece. That’s very important because if you’re not curious, you don’t see the things around you. You don’t search for different ways of doing things and you just stick to what you know because it’s easier and safer. Also, you won’t have the drive to see or deep-dive into different kinds of situations, people, opportunities, or ideas. So this is the number one consideration.
Next comes collaboration. We all know that a group is better than just one individual effort, and a group doesn’t have to be people who are ‘copy-pasted’ lookalikes. Collaboration happens when you bring these people together – because you’re curious and you want to make things happen – and you give them the foundation to make this work. That’s important – you must provide the backbone for that collaboration to succeed.
But when you do this, it can’t be some fluffy thing – that’s where you need commitment. You don’t do it once, just to be viewed favorably. It’s not a costume you wear for a short time and then forget about. As we know in other areas of life, if you are not committed, you won’t get results. So that commitment needs to be integrated into your collaboration and everything you do.
Last but not least is courage. And I say that because it’s essential you overcome your own fears, your own limitations, your own biases. Or perhaps the ones which are externally imposed on you . . . And that takes courage. And the moment you take this leap, you become bolder.
What would you do if you were not afraid? This is what it comes down to – answer that question and you see the best version of what you’re trying to do without letting your fears overcome you.
MATTHEW PITT: You’ve couched that all in personal terms, but I suppose the same points could apply to organizations as a whole, couldn’t they?
ELENI KITRA: Absolutely. And that’s why I think we need to understand that organizations are not something ‘over there’. An organization is a group of people, so it’s always about the individual.
The ‘power of one’ is that if I want to do something I can do it by creating a sort of wave of change, talking to people, persuading, seeing where we stand, and seeing if we can make the change together. That’s one thing. The second point is that organizations need this approach. We know that so well because there are so many facts and figures and data points showing that diverse and inclusive companies have better results – not just financially, but in terms of people retention, innovation, and creativity. It’s not just one or two measures, it’s so many you won’t even be able to remember them all! But they are proven and they’re being updated year after year, so it’s something that is ultimately very clear and obvious. So any organization has to start moving in that direction and asking themselves, okay, how are we going to make this happen?
MATTHEW PITT: Really interesting. And it leads me to another question that I wanted to ask you. Something that we see a lot in our own work at White Crow is a tendency for some companies to focus on diversity statistics rather than any deeper underlying societal issues. In other words, they’re getting their own house in order but forgetting about the wider world. I wonder whether you also see this in your work and, if so, what you think the dangers are of such an inward-looking D&I approach.
ELENI KITRA: Okay, so organizations have one main goal. To thrive. Of course, they have a support system around them and they should have a mission and a purpose and the intention of doing good, but they start from their identity as specific organizations which are trying to succeed in their particular goals. So, for me, if they start looking inwards and try to improve their own data, policies, processes, and structures, that’s a great way to begin. And if they do that, they’ll learn how to improve and how this becomes a habit so that eventually you don’t even have to talk about it, it’s just something you do. You don’t have to ask yourself, ‘Do I have 30% of women in my senior management team?’ because you’ve already established the right culture.
Then, once you’ve addressed the smaller challenges and problems, you can open up, you can start to see the bigger problems around the world. Also, you can see how you are impacting these, especially if you’re a global company.
You can’t easily start from the other way around. Even if you have all the right attitudes in your DNA and your vision, you can’t solve global problems if you don’t know how to apply a solution to your own company, and to your own ecosystem. So you need to start from the bottom up.
From small to big: on changing the world company by company
Readers of our recent whitepaper ‘Is Hybrid Working?’ may remember an intriguing anomaly between the way men and women view the new workplace paradigm.
MATTHEW PITT: So, in other words, take those learnings that you’ve achieved in your own organization and then share them externally. But do you still think that D&I is an area where some companies are a bit guarded?
ELENI KITRA: Well, I don’t think all companies are shy about their achievements in D&I, it’s more that they’re often not that big or not big enough to speak about those achievements. But of the Fortune 500, I think only one-third of the companies actually publish their D&I data. The ones that don’t, it’s usually because they’re not doing that well. For example, if I’m correct, I think only 7% of the Fortune 500 has a female CEO…
The thing is though, that we talk about gender equality – which is a huge problem – but there are so many different kinds of inequalities around the world that if you try to put all of this together into a set of statistics, it’s a huge challenge. So companies just need to make D&I strategy part of their overall strategy. Then they need to commit to it and make it a leadership obligation. It’s not the HR team’s responsibility or the D&I team’s job, it’s down to the leadership team…If a company puts money and effort and creativity into the challenge and then shares the outcomes with other companies, that’s when we’re going to see some real change. At the moment, we’re seeing a bit of progress but it’s like a Lego set – you build it piece by piece, but if one of the pieces is missing, you’re not going to finish the final structure.
MATTHEW PITT: And I guess that comes back to one of your Cs, doesn’t it? Because if responsibility doesn’t sit at the very highest level of a company, then they’re not truly committed.
ELENI KITRA: Yes, that’s right. And that’s what I’m trying to inspire with these ideas. In a way, it doesn’t matter whether it’s four Cs or three Ds, it’s what the words inspire…
MATTHEW PITT: Thank you. For my last question, I’d like to refer to something you said in another interview that I was reading. You said you’d never considered yourself a victim. I was quite struck by this because I think a lot of the conversation around diversity and inclusion is well-meaning but disempowering. To take an example, if you’re a young woman and you’re told repeatedly that you live in a patriarchy and the whole system is rigged against you, there’s a danger you might conclude it’s not worth even trying. Do you agree with that analysis and, more broadly, how do we best help young women to succeed in life and in business?
ELENI KITRA: First of all I want to say that I have been a victim of situations. So when I say I don’t feel like a victim, it’s a psychological thing for me. From a very young age, I had what we now call a ‘growth mindset’. Even without knowing about it, I was always fighting against anything that was trying to push me back. So it was a personality thing, but then it became bigger, it became a conscious attitude. I realized if you feel like a victim, then you go into defense mode. And I never wanted that. But if you don’t feel like a victim, you try to think of solutions. You try to think of other options and you seek out help.
One of the biggest points to understand is that if you’re a victim in a situation but you don’t want to accept it – because you don’t have support around you, you don’t have real-life models who can help you articulate what you’re feeling – then it will be much harder to improve that situation and you’ll just feel trapped.
By the way, I have a young daughter and a young son and I’ve always taught them never to accept it if someone tries to make them feel unequal. Believe that you’re good, even that you can become better than anyone else, and then go and fight for that… Because if you adopt this mode of existence, then you will discover more opportunities and more capabilities. So we’re talking about a mindset, not a situation, but there are definitely lots of bad situations happening in the world.
It’s a mentality thing: On bouncing back from bad situations
MATTHEW PITT: Well, Eleni, I could speak with you all day. It’s a fascinating range of topics that we’ve touched upon and there is so much more to explore, but I’m conscious of your time. Thank you so much for your spending a few minutes with us today and best of luck with your continuing work with PeopleFirst.
ELENI KITRA: Thank you very much, Matt. I appreciated the time and I hope we can make this world much better for the next generation.
The importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace cannot be overstated. With globalization and changing demographics, organizations must acknowledge and value the unique perspectives and experiences that their employees bring to the table. Research has shown that diverse and inclusive companies outperform their counterparts in terms of financial performance, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction.
As Eleni Kitra, founder and CEO of PeopleFirst rightly points out in our interview, inclusion is about making people feel comfortable in the environment you are setting up in the workplace. Inclusion is not just about diversity, but also about creating an environment where everyone can contribute to achieving common goals. By investing in D&I initiatives and promoting an inclusive workplace culture, organizations can unlock the full potential of their workforce, drive innovation and growth and remain competitive in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape.
It’s high time for businesses to take action toward building a more diverse and inclusive future. By doing so, companies can not only attract and retain top talent but also gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Let’s create a workplace where everyone can be their best selves and leverage their strengths to achieve common goals.
At the end of every successful search is a happy candidate. What tends to be forgotten is that there are usually a few unhappy candidates as well. Hopefully, they’re just disappointed they didn’t get the job. But sometimes the discontent runs a little deeper. In short, they’ve had a bad candidate experience.
This matters. For a start, you might want to hire these people in the future. But even if not, no company needs people out there saying bad things about them…Often such reputational damage can be long-lasting. A couple of years ago, I worked for a UK bank who were struggling to attract bankers in the north of the country because of a disastrous hiring process undertaken ten years previously.
So how do companies guard against this? Easy. Don’t upset candidates in the first place. Obviously, you can’t offer every interviewee a job, but it should be relatively straightforward to avoid the following six mistakes…
Mistake 1: Don’t Wait an Eternity Between Interviews
The most important aspect of any interview process is momentum. If a candidate provides good feedback on a meeting, you need to double down on that by scheduling the next stage as speedily as possible. And then don’t move it! We understand it’s sometimes difficult to align diaries, but too often senior leaders seem to think a candidate interview is the one thing in their calendar they can postpone or reschedule. Wrong.
The cost of dilly-dallying on that follow-up interview could be considered during the Candidate experience. In recruitment, absence doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Candidates who are full of enthusiasm today might not be quite so enraptured next month. They may even have been interviewing elsewhere in the meantime. Wait too long, and they’ll drop out of the process altogether.
Mistake 2: Be Clear About the Process and Don’t Change It
The question I hear most often from candidates is a bit like the one my kids ask me on long-distance car journeys. Are we nearly there yet? In both cases, it helps to be able to give a straight answer. The problem is, companies can be frustratingly vague about how long an interview process might take and how many stages it entails. For senior roles, it’s not unreasonable to schedule many rounds of interviews – that’s fine, but make sure the candidate knows this from the beginning. And then stick to it. Really, it’s just about managing expectations.
But each stage also needs to feel like it represents genuine progress. If multiple interviewers ask the same question, a candidate may feel they’re just going around in circles. Worse, they’ll develop a notion of their potential employer as disorganized and spoil Candidate’s Experience. In summary, decide who needs to meet the candidate, work out who’s going to ask what, and be clear about the process right from the get-go.
There’s nothing more annoying than an underprepared candidate. But is it always their fault? They can only prepare if they’re allowed to. And this will depend on how much information they have. Is there a job specification, for example? Have they been told who they’ll be meeting and provided with a biography? If this is a follow-up meeting, do they know what the feedback was from an earlier meeting and therefore what points they’ll likely be quizzed on? Perhaps most importantly, have they been informed of the tone of the meeting? Occasionally, a candidate will be told they’re going into an ‘informal chat’ only to meet a barrage of competency-based questions. That’s a nightmare for everyone and crushes the candidate’s experience.
Of course, preparing a candidate is ultimately a job for your search partners but they can only do their job if they have the necessary wherewithal – that is accurate, detailed, up-to-date information.
Also, check our detailed analysis of “Money Talks” here.
Mistake 4: Be Clear About the Process and Don’t Change It
For some reason, companies are usually a bit coy on the subject of remuneration until they get to the offer stage. We recommend the precise opposite to improve candidate experience. Say exactly how much you’re willing to pay from the very start. This has two benefits. Firstly, it sends out a very clear message that you’re serious about hiring; secondly, it means you avoid wasting time interviewing candidates who are out of range.
But here’s the other important thing – don’t suddenly change the pay at the last moment. It’s surprising how often companies do this. Of course, it’s tempting to see if you can get that stellar candidate for a few grand cheaper, but it’s also the perfect way to create a PR disaster. Having committed several weeks to the interview process, candidates will be understandably angry if it all seems suddenly to have been a waste of time, creating a bad taste during the candidate experience. Even if you and the candidate iron out your differences and come to some sort of compromise, they’ll be starting day one of their new job with a less than favorable view of their new employer. Not ideal.
Mistake 5: Turn Off Candidates Promptly and Give Them Proper, Detailed Feedback
It’s slightly worrying how often and how fulsomely candidates thank us for getting back to them after a client interview. ‘Don’t all search companies do this?’ we ask ourselves…It seems not. Oh, everybody gets back to their favorite candidate, but what about the others? They still offered up their time and they’ll quite rightly want to know the outcome of their efforts.
Another related mistake is to turn off candidates and worsen the candidate experience without saying why. As recruiters, we can usually cobble together a few platitudes but far better if we can share precise, well-reasoned feedback. It won’t necessarily be flattering, but most candidates will appreciate a bit of candor. Not only does it provide closure on the process, but it also gives them something they can draw upon at their next interview. Better still, if you can season feedback with a sprinkling of praise (“They really liked X and Y but just felt you were a bit short on Z”) then that goes even further…
Mistake 6: Do Good News by Email and Bad News by Phone
In our tech-enabled age, there’s not much you can’t do via a computer. But can doesn’t mean should. If you want to tell a candidate they’ve been awarded an interview then by all means send them an email. But if you need to tell them they’ve been rejected, it’s far better to do it on the telephone. Immediately, you’ll come across as thoughtful, courteous, and compassionate – in short, all the values you’d want people to associate with your corporate brand.
Finally, never reject people on the same day they applied for a job. This sometimes happens with automated pre-screening systems. Very efficient, no doubt, but the optics are terrible. Most applicants will have spent an hour or more preparing their application, so to be sent a straight no almost by return email is bound to be dispiriting and may even be regarded as mildly insulting. The way around this is to build in a delay to the screening system whereby rejected candidates are only notified on day three or four. Better still, avoid automated screening systems altogether.
Who’d be an economist? Marshalling financial data is a near impossible task at the best of times, but throw in a pandemic, a global economy and energy crisis and the biggest European land war since 1945, and even the most experienced pundits are likely to be scratching their heads.
But, in a sense, data-points don’t matter. Markets, as we know, run on sentiment. Fear. Greed. Hope. Despair. This is as true in the labour market as anywhere else. That’s why WhiteCrow Research decided to find out what candidates themselves are thinking about the next twelve months.
We asked 107 respondents two simple questions:
Are you worried about the global economy over the coming year?
Are you worried about your own job over the coming year?
For both questions, we asked candidates to select from one of four answers: 1. No, not all; 2. Yes, slightly; 3. Yes, very; or 4. Yes, extremely.
We discuss the results in detail below, but our chief takeaways are as follows:
There is little sense of panic, with a majority of candidates either slightly worried about the global economy or not worried at all.
Candidates are even more bullish about their own prospects, with the huge majority confident they’ll keep their job.
The region where candidates are most concerned about the economy is EMEA; the region where candidates are least concerned about the economy is the United States.
Just six percent of candidates in the US are either very or extremely worried about losing their job; a whopping 74% are not worried at all.
The results suggest hiring managers could have some challenging months ahead of them, with candidates likely reluctant to engage in conversation during such uncertain times, especially when they already feel secure in their current role.
Takeaway 1: There is little sense of panic, with a majority of candidates either slightly worried about the global economy or not worried at all.
Perhaps the most surprising detail of these results is the 19% who have no concerns about the global economy whatsoever. Remember, our source pool consists of educated, often highly intelligent professionals who presumably keep up with the news and have a more than rudimentary understanding of inflation, energy prices and global affairs. And yet almost one fifth of these people are entirely relaxed about the coming months. We’re not saying they’re wrong. We just didn’t imagine there would be quite so many of them. Of course, you could flip these results on their head and observe that 81% of people are worried about the economy to some extent. But that’s why we filtered the results as we did. Nuance is everything. The fact is, a mere 15% are ‘extremely’ worried while a hefty 39% are only ‘slightly’ worried. So, yes, there is a sense of uncertainty, but candidates are certainly not panicking.
Takeaway 2: Candidates are even more bullish about their own prospects, with a clear majority confident they’ll keep their job.
If candidates are relaxed about the global economy, they’re almost supine concerning their own job prospects. A comfortable majority (53%) are not worried at all about being made redundant. The full import of this finding is illustrated in Figure 3. By comparing answers to both our questions, we see clearly that concern for the economy does not in any way translate to concern for one’s own job security. This is most evident when we look at the percentages of those either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned. On the economy this combined figure is 42%, not far off half our source pool; but when we look at individual job concerns, that figure plummets to just 17%.
What is driving this dichotomy? Clearly, on some level, candidates are being complacent; it is inconceivable that a downturn in the economy (which many of them acknowledge is possible) won’t result in increased numbers of redundancies. Perhaps not enough of our source pool have firsthand memories of previous recessions. Or maybe they just imagine bad things only happen to other people. Still, as we always emphasize, hiring managers don’t need to explain candidate sentiment, they just need to know about it and respond accordingly.
Also, check our detailed analysis on “Money Talks” here.
Result & Analysis
Takeaway 3: The region where candidates are most concerned about the economy is EMEA; the region where candidates are least concerned about the economy is the United States.
Figure 4 shows there are significant differences in sentiment across various parts of the world. In the US, for example, our initial thesis – i.e. there is no sense of panic – is emphatically supported. Nearly a quarter of respondents are ‘not at all’ concerned about the economy and just 12% are ‘extremely’ worried. Just over half are ‘slightly’ worried which would seem a reasonable view to adopt at any stage of the economic cycle. However, in EMEA, the picture is more gloomy, with 65% either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned.
Of course, the energy crisis has impacted far more on Europe than the US so perhaps this is reflected in our results. Also, recent US inflation news has been quite positive, another reason Stateside sources could be more bullish. Regardless, this is another example of why hiring managers need to master the science of what WhiteCrow calls ‘talentomics’ – that is, the study of all those factors which dictate
Result & Analysis
Takeaway 4: Just six percent of candidates in the US are either very or extremely worried about losing their job; a whopping 74% are not worried at all.
We have already seen that most candidates, regardless of geography, are significantly less worried about their own job prospects than they are about the economy as a whole. But Figure 5 shows much of this optimism stems from candidates in the United States. There, 24% are ‘not at all’ worried about the economy, but a remarkable 74% (three in every four people we asked!) are ‘not at all’ worried about their own job. APAC also sees a sizeable leap in this cohort between questions, with 12% unconcerned about the economy but nearly half confident their own job is safe.
EMEA, by contrast, is the most jittery of the three regions. Just 23% have no concern for their job prospects whatsoever but only a minority (39%) described themselves as either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ concerned.
Takeaway 5: The results suggest hiring managers could have some challenging months ahead of them, with candidates likely reluctant to engage in conversation during such uncertain times, especially when they already feel secure in their current role.
So what does this all mean for hiring managers? Our view is they could be in for some difficult times. It comes down to what we know as ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors. If you’re looking to lure someone away from another company, it helps if they’re slightly worried about their current situation. That’s the push. But if they’re also positive on the broader economy, they’ll likely have no concern that any new job will suddenly be placed ‘at risk’. That’s the pull.
Unfortunately, our findings suggest the very opposite of that situation. Instead of candidates sitting nervously in their seats, hoping for an opportunity in a buoyant market, we have very settled candidates who are reluctant to engage with opportunities in what they see as, at best, an unpredictable market.
Now more than ever, then, TA leaders must show the full range of their skills. They need to be not just recruiters, but also salespeople, brand ambassadors, reward specialists and – yes – economists. They need to understand the data on pay, prices, interest rates, unemployment and much more.
But most importantly, they need to understand candidate sentiment.
The heady days following lockdown were exciting times for talent leaders. As the global economy reopened, companies loosened their purse strings and embarked on what one business leader described as a “hiring frenzy” to get the executive search industry on board. It briefly seemed like that V-shaped bounce the politicians promised us was coming true after all.
And then it didn’t.
Faced with rampant inflation and a cost of living crisis, inhouse search professionals are suddenly finding their budgets squeezed. The problem is, there are still key leadership hires to make. In other words, the directive from on high is ‘do more with less’ and be an agile shape shifter.
That’s not so easy if your search partner is one of the many prominent firms who, despite the pressures on their clients, are unwilling to compromise and still offer the same model: exorbitant pricing and plain vanilla output.
But other flavours are available.
Indeed, many organizations are discovering the executive search industry can provide a range of innovative, affordable, even disruptive solutions.
Below, we list 9 questions every talent leader should be asking themselves about their go-to search firm.
Why am I paying such enormous fees?
The standard executive search fee is 30% of guaranteed first year remuneration, paid in three equal instalments on shortlist, placement and retention. This system rewards inactivity and failure. The shortlist fee is often just payment for sharing a few names from a consultant’s ‘black book’. Even if no candidate is placed, the search firm still waltzes off with two thirds of an enormous sum of money.
What’s all this about taxis and paperclips?
Of course, interviewing candidates is an expensive business. You need to take a taxi to and from the meeting place. That’s the Savoy, by the way. Then you need to buy the candidate some cucumber sandwiches and a glass of . . . oh, hang on, it’s 2023. I’ve got this funny icon on my laptop called Zoom!
So that 30% is only the starting point, now there’s the 10% (in “admin” fees) that are ratcheting up on your invoice. Let’s be honest, search firms should be paid for finding and placing candidates – nothing else.
Wow, you’ve got really nice offices. How do you afford them?
Where’s your search firm based? Their website should tell you. It might even have some glossy pics of their shiny, eco-friendly offices in Manhattan or Mayfair. Very nice. And slightly pointless. Sure, a few years ago a bit of expensive real estate was an important way to impress clients and candidates alike. But today? As more people work from home and the majority of meetings take place online, the need for uptown premises is fast diminishing.
So if your search firm’s still using them, guess who’s paying the rent? Alternatively, if they have downsized their offices, why aren’t they passing on the savings to you in the form of reduced fees?
I liked that person who led the pitch meeting. Why have I never seen them again?
You’ll never get the best candidate if your search firm isn’t selling the opportunity right. That’s a function of understanding you, your business and the role in question. You probably remember explaining all that stuff to the search consultant at the kick-off meeting. Impressive character. Partner in the business. But are you sure they’re the one leading the search? Or have they perhaps delegated the job to an up-and-coming junior?
That’s right, you’re paying champagne prices for sipping lemonade.
What happens if I hire two people from the same shortlist?
Well, this one depends on who owns the IP and too often the answer to that will be . . . not you. There’s only one set of research costs involved in producing a shortlist report so if you want to hire two people from the same list, there’s no earthly reason you should be charged twice over. But that’s exactly what’ll happen if the data doesn’t belong to you. Probably worth checking.
Where’s my market & competitor insight?
The most progressive search firms now have dedicated Talent Intelligence practices. Even smaller firms routinely provide clients with data on competitors, candidate sentiment and market trends. That’s because it’s easy to get this stuff. If your search partner’s speaking to candidates all day (and they should be) there’s no end to the market insight and intelligence they can learn. Not just idle gossip, but precious information that’ll help you hire better, smarter and faster. So if your provider’s end product is just a handsomely bound candidate shortlist, you should be asking why.
But also, beware those TI teams which are disconnected to their executive search colleagues, you will often find within firms they exist in separate countries with little to no communication. That’s a headache for clients. It means separate engagement letters, two sets of costs, non-aligned delivery schedules and a fragmented end-product.
How did you find these candidates?
Old-school search consultants rely on their network. To be fair, this can often result in a perfectly decent shortlist. But are these really the best candidates in the market or just the best in someone’s ‘black book’ or database? Also, how come they’re a bit . . . you know, similar? As organizations increasingly prioritize diversity, full-market scoping is essential. This can’t be achieved unless your search firm has a dedicated research and sourcing function with the ability to fully map out and benchmark the talent landscape.
Sorry, how long?
All industries like to draw a veil of mystery around themselves. It makes their work seem more important. And in the executive search industry world, it allows you to operate to a pace more befitting a think tank. This in turn discourages clients from asking such tiresome questions as “where’s my shortlist?” or “how do you know these are the best candidates?”. But here’s the thing – executive search isn’t rocket science. Of course, you should never rush a search – especially if you’re also gathering all that precious talent intelligence – but if it takes much longer than six weeks, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Six weeks from when exactly?
Ah, good point. It’s easy to imagine that the clock starts ticking on your search as soon as you sign off the proposal. And maybe it does. Then again, maybe your search firm are so strapped for resources that they can’t start for another month. Suddenly your six-week project is a 10-week project. Next thing you know you’ve got stakeholders demanding an update and berating you for missed deadlines. Slightly awkward.
Final Thoughts on The Executive Search Industry
Let’s be clear. There are many fine search consultants out there and they don’t all work for WhiteCrow. But it’s also true that too many of our industry peers are shortchanging clients with exorbitant fees, mediocre output and very little in the way of results.
Can they change? Maybe, but why would they? As private sector salaries surge upwards, those 30% commission fees are getting bigger and bigger.
And perhaps that strikes at the root of the problem. There’s an old saying that the most difficult task in the world is convincing a wealthy man he’s wrong about something. The same is true at the corporate level. After years of easy money, the old-school search firms and job platforms seem incapable of adapting to new realities. Inflexible, intransigent, and wholly lacking in creativity, they’re simply regurgitating the same inadequate solutions but with a winning smile and a whopping invoice.
Perhaps it’s time to turn to someone nimbler, smarter, more creative.
Fees decoupled from candidate compensation
Flexibility to commission each element of the search individually
No hidden charges/safe budgeting
No paying for legacy infrastructure
End-to-end delivery by seasoned Search Leaders
Highly networked
Co-data ownership
Integrated Talent Insights & Search Team
Market insights and intelligence as standard
Full-market scoping
Shortlist delivery in under 6 weeks
Scaled for responsiveness
For insight on how we helped world leading organizations in 2022, see our year in review:
In over 20 years as a recruiter, I’ve only twice persuaded a candidate to move for less money. One was a KPMG partner who took a role with a not-for-profit and the other was a successful investment banker who wanted to move back to his native South Africa. But if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a candidate say something along the lines of “of course, money’s not the most important thing”, I’d probably have retired from recruitment many years ago.
In other words, it rather seems as though money is the most important thing. This paradox is worth investigating for two reasons. Firstly, much of the world is suffering a cost-of-living crisis. Secondly, there is an opinion abroad that the various lockdowns have endowed us all with a more enlightened view of life and work. According to this narrative, we now care less about money and more about such things as culture, inclusivity and corporate purpose.
But how true is this paradigm? Can hiring managers really attract top talent without offering top pay? And if so, what specifically are candidates looking for instead? We attempted to answer these questions by asking 200 candidates a simple question: If you were offered a new role, what would be your most important consideration – the pay, the brand, the role or the culture? The results, we think, make for interesting reading. Here are our top five takeaways
1. Money is most likely to be a candidate’s top priority, but workers are still three times as likely to prioritize something other than money.
A cynic might interpret the graphic above as proof positive that the world’s workers are still primarily motivated by cold, hard cash. And it’s true, ‘money’ was selected by our source pool more times than any other answer. But two things are worth pointing out. Firstly, the results are pretty damn close. Secondly, if we flip the results on their head, we observe that 69% of respondents said something other than money. That means any employer looking to attract top talent merely by paying top whack, could be in for a nasty surprise. Nearly three quarters of their candidate pool is likely to be more interested in . . . well, what exactly?
This is where the results get really interesting. The fact is, there is no runaway winner (or distant loser) among the four rival options – brand, pay, culture, role. That places recruiters in a quandary because they are unable to predict candidate sentiment with any degree of reliability. Pick a job applicant at random and there is a roughly even chance that he/she will primarily motivated by any one of those four key factors.
The conclusion is simple: in crafting an employee proposition, hiring managers must now give equal weight to every aspect of a role. Yes, it needs to pay well, but it also has to be a genuinely challenging opportunity with nice friendly colleagues at a strong, culturally progressive brand. Easy, right?
2. Although younger workers are the ones driving workplace evolution, they are actually far more likely to be motivated by money; meanwhile older workers place more value upon the role itself.
Social change is often created by the young. In the last half century or so, youth movements have highlighted such important issues as racial justice, gender equality and concern for the environment. In the corporate world, it is the junior ranks who have most often agitated for a more caring and inclusive workplace. But now they’ve got it, they don’t seem to want it very much. Or rather, they want other things slightly more.
Among workers with fewer than five years’ experience, just 7% said culture was their most important consideration when assessing a new job. In contrast, 48% opted for money. Admittedly, the statistics shift slightly when we look at workers with between five- and ten-years’ experience but even among this cohort money is comfortably the most popular answer.
What are we to make of this? Surely it can’t be the case that every young person who speaks up about culture and purpose is merely virtue signaling. No, a more plausible narrative is as follows: Our least experienced cohort (those with five years’ experience or less) will likely be in their first or second job. They may have college debts and they’re almost certainly paying high rents. Naturally, money is important to them. In addition, being at the start of their career, they are likely to view their current job as merely a steppingstone to better things. As a result, workplace culture is less of a priority.
By contrast, older workers are likely to be homeowners, possibly with substantial savings and relatively affordable mortgage repayments. So while money will be important to them (they’re also likely to have kids and college fees), it won’t be as urgent an issue as it is to a debt-ridden graduate. Also, having long since passed the job-hopping phase of their career, older workers are more likely to view their current role as a longterm thing. Ergo, they value it more highly.
3. Employer efforts around EVP may be misconceived if they’re simply aimed at attracting talent: culture is the top priority of less than a fifth of our source pool.
Out Talent Intelligence practice has worked on dozens of perception analysis studies, typically for clients who want to find out how their EVP lands with a particular candidate pool. At the outset of every project, we ask the same question. ‘Why do you want to know this?’ Often, it transpires that the client believes they will attract more and better candidates if their brand is associated with certain cultural values.
Our experience is that this more often works in reverse. That is, a company with a toxic culture will certainly fail to attract and retain top-level talent. But a company with a strong culture will not be noticeably more successful in hiring people than any of its competitors.
The results of our survey support this observation. Just 18% of the source pool said culture would be their primary concern when considering a new job.
Of course, it’s important not to misinterpret that statistic. It does not mean that 82% of workers don’t care about culture. It just means it’s not their first priority. In seeking to explain this further, we can draw again upon multiple perception analysis studies. One of the findings that emerges repeatedly from such projects is that most people believe they already enjoy their working environment. They may not be happy about every aspect of their job, but they typically think their employer is fair-minded, inclusive and culturally progressive.
In other words, a good corporate culture is now considered a given, just like central heating. You wouldn’t expect to attract more candidates because your office has double glazing and adjustable thermostats; nor should you imagine your hiring figures will significantly increase because you offer a gender-diverse workforce or an active network of in-work support groups.
4. Women are far more likely than men to be motivated by workplace culture.
Readers of our recent whitepaper ‘Is Hybrid Working?’ may remember an intriguing anomaly between the way men and women view the new workplace paradigm. Briefly, while male workers are more likely to want to work fully remotely, female workers are more likely to want to work fully onsite. We mention this here because it casts additional light on one of the findings of our latest survey.
As the graphics show, just 7% of male respondents opted for ‘culture’, but when we filter instead for female respondents the figure leaps to 44%. That’s a massive difference. But not perhaps surprising given many women’s preference to travel into the office rather than work from home. If you plan – or at least prefer – to operate from a laptop in your kitchen, it doesn’t really matter what the workplace culture is like. You’re never there anyway. Conversely, if you’re in the office every day, you’ll want it to be a nice, welcoming place.
It’s important not to generalize. We are not talking about most men or most women. We are simply saying that a certain attitude or opinion is more likely to be attributed to one or the other gender. The takeaway for recruiters is therefore one of nuance. When seeking to close a female candidate, it is worth bearing in mind that culture – even if it’s not their top concern – is likely to play a significant role in their thinking. By contrast, efforts to secure a male candidate by repeatedly emphasizing the corporate environment may constitute a tactical error.
Perhaps the best advice is to forget about the gender perspective and simply find out your candidate’s opinion on remote working. Would they, for example, be happy to work fully remote? If so, the concept of ‘culture’ probably isn’t that important to them. If, on the other hand, they’d happily come into the office five days a week, they’re probably someone for whom culture is a critical consideration.
5. Brand strength won’t hurt an employer but it’s unlikely to mean you can hire top talent for less money.
Seasoned recruiters will remember a time when brand was king. Approach a candidate with an opportunity to join a global player such as Citibank or Unilever and you’d be guaranteed a positive response. But times have changed. The 2008 financial crisis reminded us that some corporate gods have feet of clay. Meanwhile, the fintech revolution demonstrated that small is sometimes beautiful. Dial in an increasing focus on diversity, sustainability and purpose – not values that big companies always easily demonstrate – and it’s not surprising that ‘brand’ has lost some of its lustre in the world of talent acquisition.
That’s certainly what our results seem to indicate. Brand is still a relevant consideration for many – probably most – people, but it won’t often trump money or a challenging, well-defined role. Hiring managers should take heed.
Any illustrious company seeking to undercut its competitors on pay and rely on its brand to secure top talent, may be disappointed.
One suspects this is a lesson already learned by some of the tech giants. Netflix, for example, is well known for paying well above market rates for the best candidates. It’s also, we’d suggest, why many global companies seem to downplay their success and present themselves as folksy, down-to-earth startups. Think Ben & Jerry’s. In fact, you might almost say that the most farsighted companies are now seeking to develop a sort of ‘anti-brand’. By stressing their commitment to mission statements and corporate values, big companies are demonstrating a clear message: they no longer take their employees for granted. Another way of doing this of course is to pay those employees a lot of money
In the first of a series of occasional dialogues with senior business leaders, we speak to Arvind Sachdev, Corporate Vice President and General Manager at Colgate-Palmolive in the Philippines. As well as sharing a few stories about his professional journey, Arvind provided us with fascinating insight into leadership, diversity, and corporate purpose.
In a fascinating 30-year career, Arvind has established multiple businesses and worked with some of the world’s leading consumer brands. Multi-lingual, he has led digital and cultural transformation programs across Russia, China, the Philippines, and elsewhere.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation and a video link to the full-length interview.
Whitecrow Research (WCR): Welcome Arvind. By way of introduction, perhaps you could tell us a little about your current role and share some of the highlights of your very successful career.
Arvind Sachdev (AS): Of course. It’s probably easiest if I begin in the middle. My career really picked up when I went to Russia in 1993 to establish a women’s hygiene brand, Tampax, which was later bought by P&G. The task given to me was to establish a distribution structure for the brand in the former Soviet Union. This was when Russia was still evolving out of the Soviet era. It was a very steep learning curve because I had to learn the language at the same time as setting up the distribution and also hiring people – people who had never worked in sales because there was nothing called sales in Russian businesses in those days. It was a tough journey because we were starting from scratch. We had to establish plants, procure cotton from Uzbekistan and launch a totally new product that Russian women simply weren’t aware of. There were two or three of us ex-pats and the rest of the team were local employees who we hired and trained. But we were extremely successful. We made it a $45 million brand in just two and a half years.
Then I was spotted by SC Johnson who asked me to establish their business in Russia. We went from importing a couple of containers to re-establishing the whole distribution and warehousing structure. Then, two years later I got an offer to join Colgate Palmolive in Russia. This was in the 1988 crisis when the Russian currency was getting devalued, so I had to go in and restructure the whole company. We did that, and then from 2001 to 2006, we turned it into a $240 million business with a brand share of 35% in toothpaste.
Next, I was offered a role as General Manager for the Central Asia business for Colgate. I opened up 11 Central Asian markets from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan to Tajikistan – and in four of those markets we established our own sales force in the country. We grew to be a $170 million business in those small countries, with a very heavy market share in each.
And then I moved to Paris with Colgate in a role which was called Global Export and covered the Middle East and some of North Africa. I did that successfully for three years, then I realized that we needed to restructure in terms of the business sitting in France. So we actually brought the whole Middle East and North Africa business and some of the French overseas territories under one umbrella. These were like 30 countries. We established a head office in Dubai and brought in around 90 people in sales, marketing, and supply chain. All those structures were established centrally but at the same time, we had localized executions, even in Israel!
Chinese puzzle: On setting up an E-commerce Business from scratch
Chinese puzzle: On setting up an e-commerce business from scratch
Within a year, I was asked by the CEO to move to China where they had some challenges with the brand. But they also wanted me to establish the e-commerce business. I actually knew nothing about e-commerce! The only reason they offered me the role was because of my curiosity and my willingness to learn. And then they also knew I could adapt quickly to local culture and work really well with local teams. I knew how to speak with people – I could interact for example with the CEO of Alibaba or Walmart . . . We successfully established the ecomm business in two years and now about 35% of our business in China comes via e-commerce.
I was responsible for building a three-year innovation plan where we kind of moved away from the mass market and gave the brand more of a premium positioning. And it was all done with a mindset of bringing high-end innovation into China, so we worked with Korean and Japanese companies who became outsourced innovators for us when it came to launching products like electric toothbrushes. It was a very challenging market to operate in, but it was also an amazing journey – the sort of journey you never forget. But the way I saw it, you ultimately needed a Chinese person to run the company because of the language and the geopolitical situation. So eventually I handed over to a Chinese GM and moved here to the Philippines to establish the e-com business and reorganize the company.
Now we are the market leader by far in oral care brands. When I came here, it was a 63% market share and now it’s 75%. We especially built strategies to increase penetration in rural areas and now we’re one of the best-known brands in the country, better even than Mcdonald’s. It’s a $500 million business and it’s growing six to 10% year on year.
That has been my journey from a business point of view. One thing I learned about myself early on is I like a challenge. It makes me more vibrant, and more enthusiastic. I’m an extrovert by nature. I draw energy from people, so I tend to surround myself with the best people possible. I consider myself a progressive thinker because I’m somebody who came out of a family business in a small town and ended up working in really challenging environments where you need eight bodyguards just to move around! Always though, I wanted to deliver and learn at the same time.
“One thing I learned about myself early on is I like a challenge.”
WCR: Much of what you speak about there pertains to leadership. What is your concept of leadership and how do you apply this in your career and your personal life?
AS: I have a straightforward leadership perspective embedded in my heart and soul from a young age. It goes back to how I was trained by my father. Leadership is about listening to people. You need to understand the fundamentals and make sure strategies are designed which can actually be executed. They might be people management strategies, business strategies, or supply chain strategies. But you can’t deliver them unless you are listening to people more than you are talking to them. Then you need to go back to them with a clear action that they trust is the right action.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a customer, an employee, or an external partner, you need to listen as much as possible and make sure the whole organization is listening too so that your viewpoint is 360. At the core of all this is empathy. If there is no empathy – if you don’t have the passion to listen and solve people’s problems – you can’t propel the business forward.
Solving Tomorrow’s Problem Today: On Leadership and Thinking Ahead
“Leadership is about listening to people.”
Solving tomorrow’s problem today: On leadership and thinking ahead
The second point which I always tell people is that leadership is not only about today. You have to be able to visualize the future. You may be wrong but you must at least have a point of view. How do we bring brands into the country? Who are our partners of the future? Who is my future successor? Let me give an example from here in the Philippines. I have a relationship with the top ten families here and yes, they move in a different circle from us, but I can still sit down with them across the table and have a discussion because they know I’m listening to them and they know I will go back to them with the answers they need.
But if I have to sum up my leadership philosophy in one sentence, I think leadership is about feeling the earth before you start to aim for the sky.
Power of Progressive Thinking
WCR: Let me ask you about something else which seems to run like a thread through your career – transformation. What are the characteristics of a successful transformation and how as a leader do you bring these about?
AS: I think earlier I used the term ‘progressive thinking’. A leader can never settle for the status quo. Otherwise, everybody will become lethargic and the business will fall behind. My approach to transformation is that if I’m asked to achieve X, then I want to know, can I achieve X+3? And how? And can I drive my organization to think in terms of X+3?
Let’s take an example from my current role. When I came here, it was a highly traditional organization that worked with distributors and retailers and sold about four or five hundred SKUs. And that was it. E-commerce was probably .0001% of the business. Coming out of China, I knew e-commerce was warming up in southeast Asia. The Philippines was still not there with e-commerce but we had to be ready. Then I understood very quickly that Facebook has 85% penetration here and Instagram has 65% penetration and I started asking questions. Do we advertise on Facebook? Do we advise on Instagram? The answer was kind of yeah, we do it, but not really properly. So I decided on a strategy whereby we should be number one when it comes to digital transformation. Of course, it took resources. I had to go to my bosses and say hey, this is what we want to achieve. But I got the blessings and today 60-65% of our media spend is in digital.
The power of progressive thinking: On transformation and digitization
So I have completely transformed the organization here. And the way I did it was through progressive thinking, but also have a very clear idea of the environment we wanted to transform to. Digital transformation was the framework. We set ourselves the task of digitizing everywhere, not just e-commerce. The first thing we did, was we got a company from the UK – they’re one of the best trainers for e-commerce – and we gave them a contract to train every single person in the company whether they work in ecommerce or not. 126 people were trained in just 12 weeks. And suddenly the buzzwords started! Everybody understood that they can make use of this training somehow in their own work. So today, everybody in the organization has accountability to digitize part of their business.
You need to create an environment where the organization can transform itself without you pushing on a daily basis and create a resounding leadership. If you give people the resources, you give them the environment. They feel comfortable enough to take charge of it and they also see the benefit.
I did this also in Russia. When I left in 2006, the company was the same size but it was delivering six times the sales. Because the people were different, their approach was different. Then, in the Middle East, I had these 30 countries doing small amounts of business and I thought, how can I provide them with the resources to deliver the same sort of marketing concepts we use in Dubai or other developed markets? So we said, let’s centralize and give them those marketing concepts which they can execute locally . . .
Diversity and Inclusion
“Transformation always has to be one step ahead. You can’t chase it or it won’t work.”
WCR: I’d like to ask you now about diversity. I’m particularly interested to hear your thoughts on this subject because I know you’ve worked in many different countries. Given this experience, what have you learned about how a global organization can draw upon its diversity of resource?
AS: One of the reasons I joined Colgate initially was because the company was quite diverse. Wherever I’ve worked as a GM and a Vice President – whether it’s Latin America or India or China – there have always been about four or five nationalities in my management team. That helped me to form my own diversity principles. But also when I was growing up in a small, down-to-earth family, we always had diverse people working with us. Rich, poor, different abilities, and different cultures . . .
One thing I have learned is that if I go into a country, the first thing I must do is learn the language. Now, I’m not an expert in any language, but I speak Russian very well, I read French slightly better than I speak it, and I know enough Arabic that I can make sense of it and really understand the culture. That’s what language gives you. You get to know the culture, you understand what’s really going on in the place . . . If you take the Philippines, there are probably three or four distinct cultures here and if you know this, then you can do your marketing differently.
“That’s what language gives you. You get to know the culture, you understand what’s really going on in the place . . .”
But you also want to bring in certain global principles, you want to broaden people’s minds. One of the things we’ve done here is around ocean plastic which is one of the biggest issues in the Philippines. We started working with other companies – some competitors, some not – and we formed a plastic alliance. We said let’s try and solve this problem together. I was part of the initial founding group. We lobbied the government, we worked on the Extended Producer Responsibility law which recently got passed, and now we are setting up the regulations around that. I’m very proud of that. In Colgate, we’ve set up our own sustainability principles in the Philippines and one of our priorities is plastic neutrality, so we’ve started to recover plastic and work with partners to start recycling that plastic.
We’re also working with Pride organizations here. The Philippines has a lot of challenges around equal employment opportunities. We’ve set up our own community where people can speak openly and listen to external speakers. Then, we’re starting to embark on programs looking at physical disability and we’ve also installed women’s scholarships in ultra-poor areas. There are lots of things you can be doing across the diversity area but at the same time, you do need to be a little bit focused. It’s something very close to my heart, but we still have our business to deliver. So what I try to do is make sure programs benefit society but also strengthen our brand.
Corporate Responsibility
WCR: Well, you’ve anticipated my next question, which is about corporate responsibility. I know that Colgate-Palmolive ranks very highly in this regard. You’re near the top of most sustainability indices and your 2025 Social Impact Mission is a very detailed document. But what is the balance between purpose and profit?
AS: Yes, that’s always a debatable question! I believe that you know, we exist as a corporation to make money for our shareholders. But I also believe that while you’re making your money, you can also deliver on your responsibility towards the community. And if you take the community seriously then you know that sometimes you need to behave like an activist and other times you need to contribute more passively. But I think you need to choose your battles and make sure there is a longer-term benefit for society. If you’re just doing ad hoc social responsibility, just ticking boxes, I don’t think that’s the idea at all. The idea is to make sure there is a sustainable and manageable investment going into any program so that it’s delivering good for the community but also helping the business to grow and develop.
“If you’re just doing ad hoc social responsibility, just ticking boxes, I don’t think that’s the idea at all.”
So when you talk about purpose, I would say it shouldn’t just be transactional purpose. There should be a brand-level effect. I want to make sure our brand is loved, visible, distinctive, and clearly at the top of people’s minds. If we donate a million bars of soap with our brand on them to the right people at the right time, we’re sending a clear message to consumers that we’re with them on their journey during the good times and the bad times.
Balancing act: On reconciling purpose and profit
And you must also be very clear about your purpose. You cannot state a purpose and then go off and do something totally different. And of course, there is a lot of cynicism around it. Many people think the corporate purpose is just a sham, they think we just exist to make money. But you know, for certain brands I think social responsibility and business are very closely linked because, frankly, if you’re not making any money, you can’t hope to make a difference either. Otherwise, you might just as well be an NGO, although even they need money!
WCR: I’d like to look forwards to my final question. What does the future hold for you and how do you see your leadership journey evolving both professionally and personally?
AS: Well, look, I’ve given 25 years to Colgate so it may be time to look for something else which is similarly challenging and purposeful, and enjoyable. I want to continue learning and moving ahead. I’ve been in the FMCG industry for a long time but my leadership approach has broadened so much during that time and I feel I could move into any other industry and make an impact. I’ve shown I can learn quickly and adapt and still deliver big. I want to get into something where my leadership can be utilized, whether that’s in transformation, building communities or building businesses . . . I think all leaders need to guard against becoming bored and just working on autopilot. I don’t want that to be me.
Learning never stops: On the future
So, yes, it would be interesting to have a totally different experience but also one where I get to give something back. For me, learning should never stop. It’s a lifelong journey. I’m happy to jump on any ship right now but of course I want to have fun at the same time. I must have a passion for any opportunity because that’s what will make me really go after it. There needs to be both achievement and personal satisfaction.
“For me, learning should never stop. It’s a lifelong journey.”
WCR: Well, we shall keep a close eye on your LinkedIn page. You’ve had a fascinating career so far and we’re certainly keen to discover what you do next. Thank you for talking to us.
In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world, the ability to adapt and evolve is crucial for success. Those who can navigate through the uncertainties of the future and remain resilient are the ones who will thrive. This is where the concept of shape-shifting comes in. Shape-shifters are individuals who can adapt to any situation, change direction when needed, and thrive in the face of adversity. In this article, we will explore the characteristics of agile shape-shifters and how you can develop this skill set to succeed in your personal and professional life. Let me start with Tale from some time ago.
Also, you can check out our detailed article on “Hybrid Working” here.
I was abruptly woken by howling winds and a stormy gale, that violently rattled my single-pane window. It was 1987, and the Great Storm had whipped and battered Southern England. Entire trees were yanked from their roots.
At 7 years old, this was my first experience of a natural disaster and terror. I had no idea that winds could be so merciless.
And then the world went on. I went back to school and those fallen tree barks were sawn and repurposed into something else useful.
Tales From My Mama
I grew up in the UK, and mum would often tell me tales about India where she grew up. I remember her reciting the story about the India/Pakistan partition. Our family (along with millions of others) had to uproot and move across new borders, leaving our homes, belongings, friends, and dreams behind. She was just a little girl then, but she witnessed the division.
And then the world went on, and our family repurposed and re-established themselves in their new home.
Also, check our detailed analysis on “Money Talks” here.
1990’s Recession
As the early 1990’s recession hit, I saw my parents lose their business, life savings, hopes, and ambitions. They eventually relocated and pivoted their careers by re-skilling.
Again the world went on, and my parents repurposed themselves into something else useful.
2008 Economic Downturn
In 2007, I arrived in Singapore full of wild ambition to launch an employment agency. Little did I know that 2008 would be the onslaught of a global recession leading to mass redundancies. These were not prime conditions to launch an employment agency
Still, the world went on. We repurposed our goals and rebuilt our value stack. We spearheaded a change in conversation with clients.
During a recent call with a client, I invited him to look at his personal value stack to see if it ‘held water’ in line with the pace of change, and his company’s grand vision. I shared three words to help him focus his leadership strategy. Futurist, opportunity, and shape-shifter.
1. Futurist
Imagine what the future may look like for your line of work in 1-5 years. Now visualize a cautious, pragmatic, ambitious, zany (or your choice of adjective) view of the world. How would each of these worlds be functioning?
2. Opportunity
In all imagined futuristic worlds, the most agile shape-shifters will lead the way. Ask yourself what opportunities you see in all future concepts of the world. What role could you/your company/your team/your family and your friends play in a new world dynamic?
Then re-evaluate your value-stack, by up-skilling, re-skilling, and growing in value.
3. Shape-Shifter
By definition, shape-shifting is the ability to transform. I believe this will become the most critical skill to master in our work and personal lives. Consider the superpowers of a shape-shifter:
· A shape-shifter can repurpose themselves to take advantage of current times.
· A shape-shifter is agile and can anticipate different scenarios.
· A shape-shifter can emerge from calamities, as they shift their shape just in time.
Imagine, those fallen trees from the Great Storm of 1987, their barks repurposed for fuel, houses, furniture, paper, or perhaps books to inspire the greatest of minds.
It is those who are able to repurpose themselves by constantly re-examining their ‘value stack’, who will survive violent storms of change. This is the essence of being a shape-shifter today.
Stacking Value
Whilst anxiety envelopes many of us, I invite you to consider a life-long vocation of being an agile shape-shifter. Continuously growing our value stack will become the key focus for leaders and organizations, to keep pace with change and really show their mettle.
Who are the people currently focused on shape-shifting? Who is busy repurposing on purpose? Who is evaluating their value stack?
When this pandemic moves to our history books, so perhaps shall the stories of the agile shape-shifters.
Every January, Collins Dictionary selects its top ten words and phrases of the preceding year. Among the publisher’s picks for 2021 was ‘hybrid working’. Most talented professionals would agree it was a great choice. Pre-pandemic, 90% of the world traveled into the office every day, whereas now the very idea seems like something from a bygone age.
But it would be wrong to see this change as merely the result of COVID. Rather, the virus was a catalyst. What actually enabled the upheaval in our working habits was two converging sets of opinions.
Our recent whitepaper Is Hybrid Workingdemonstrated that men are far more likely than women to want to work fully remotely.
Firstly, there was an increasingly vocal group of (mostly younger) professionals who were demanding more flexible forms of working. This was the same prescient generation who made much of the early running on such ideas as corporate purpose, sustainability and work/life balance. But their preference for working from home was often seen as a step too far.
Secondly, there was a group of (mostly older) professionals who were finally persuaded that remote working needn’t mean a drop in productivity. Indeed, many of these senior leaders were pleasantly surprised to discover other benefits to working from home. They got to spend more time with their kids, for example, and they didn’t have to dress up in a suit every day. With both these cohorts finally in agreement, the brave new world of WFH was upon us.
But as the memory of COVID recedes, it’s worth checking on whether sentiment has changed at all. How are those younger professionals enjoying working from their bedrooms? Are they as enthusiastic as ever or is it a case of careful what you wish for? Alternatively, are the managerial community having second thoughts? What is the data saying about productivity? And what is the impact on training, mentoring, team cohesion and workplace culture?
We spoke to over 100 professionals across all sectors, asking them for their thoughts on remote working and measuring whether these aligned with those of their employers.
The results seem to suggest we’ve arrived at a delicate balance between what workers want and what employers are willing to provide. Nevertheless, certain tensions are also apparent.
As Figures 1 illustrates, 61% of our sample group are currently working to a hybrid arrangement – that is, some days they go into the office and other days they don’t. This accords impressively with the same group’s actual preference, with 65% saying hybrid working is their favored option.
This prompts an obvious question: what do the other 35% prefer – fully remote or fully onsite? Here, we see some surprising results. Most eye-catchingly, only 13% of people want to be fully remote. Admittedly, this is still more than those who are actually remote (11%) but it still shows that the vast majority place considerable value on onsite or hybrid working. We can also confirm that many of the remote working enthusiasts were in the tech sector, often performing contract roles of relatively short duration. It makes sense that these people would place less value on getting to know colleagues and contributing to a specific workplace culture.
Conversely, when we quizzed the 87% on why they disliked the idea of fully remote working they tended to mention the same points: the importance of building relationships with colleagues; the opportunity to benefit from formal training; or simply the enjoyment that comes with being part of a shared enterprise. In fact, so important are these notions in some people’s minds that they would actually prefer to be in the office every day of the week. Nearly a quarter (22%) of our sample group said they favoured this arrangement – a far higher percentage than we would have expected, albeit lower than the number who are actually working fully onsite.
We also thought it might be interesting to filter our results by gender. Much of the great work that companies are doing around diversity focuses on workplace experience, so it is important to understand what sort of workplace women and men prefer. Is it an office or a coffee table? What we discovered was that males and females are closely aligned in their overall preference for hybrid working, but surprisingly far apart when it comes to the costs and benefits of remote working.
Fig. 2: Current & preferred working arrangements (Women)
Fig. 3: Current & preferred working arrangements (Men)
Let’s take hybrid working first. We saw in our overall statistics that this was the preferred setup for most (65%) of our sources. This aligns closely with the result for both men (67%) and women (62%). However, while 17% of male sources said they’d be happy to work fully remote, only 7% of females said this would be their preferred option.
This being the case, it is not surprising that we also see a wide disparity between men and women when it comes to fully onsite working. Here, the tables are turned, with 31% of women stating this as their preference but only 16% of men saying the same.
Check out our Quarterly Published The WhiteCrow Whisper to help you with Recruitment here.
This has implications not just for recruiters but also for professionals engaged in work around inclusivity and corporate culture. What is driving this disparity between men and women when it comes to workplace preferences? Do females attach more value to building relationships with colleagues? Are men less team spirited or are they just more likely to enjoy working on their own? Obviously, we are wandering into the realm of speculation here, but the questions are surely pertinent. If we agree that some industries suffer from a lack of gender diversity, it appears we may be compounding the problem by allowing the practice of fully remote working to become more established.
And what of the future? We spoke earlier of productivity and the widely held concern that this might be depressed by allowing people to work from home. The consensus now seems to be that this was an unfounded fear, but is the evidence really in on this point? True, OECD figures show that the most productive countries are not necessarily those with the longest working week – Luxembourg, for example, is far more productive than Greece, but has an average working week of 29 hours compared to Greece’s 39.1 hours.
But our focus in this paper is not so much upon the numbers of hours worked as where they are worked from. It may take another few years of hybrid and remote working before we see the full effect on output per capita.
Then, of course, there will be new developments which further complicate the picture. One work-related concept which is gaining increasing traction is the four day week. This was famously derided as a “crackpot idea” by Boris Johnson, but some companies claim to have adopted it without any noticeable drop in output. If the practice catches on more widely, what effect will this have on workplace preferences? If you’re coming into the office three days a week now, will you drop to just two days? If so, how is that going to land with your employer? But if not, you’re suddenly spending 75% of your time in the office – probably not what you signed up for when you agreed to hybrid working.
To summarize, the great majority of workers enjoy hybrid working. This is also what the majority of employers provide. So far so good. But there are also reasonably large numbers of people who’d prefer to work from home five days a week. The majority of these are men. By contrast, significant percentages of female workers would be happy to work fully onsite. These findings show that the global workplace’s seemingly placid ‘new normal’ is shot through with a delicate network of tensions. It is only the companies who understand – and carefully address – these tensions that will thrive in our post-COVID world.
