Crikey, so many people I spoke with this week were either changing jobs or new people who were leaving and struggling to recruit for open positions.
And, this was not just in the UK but across other markets, it seemed.
What is going on? Questions have been racing through my mind.
- Has a year working from home been too much for us. We cannot stand it anymore and need a change to get back to the office? Or
- Are people now being asked to return to the office, but they secreting like the remote working, so no thank you and time to change role?
- Have we had just had enough? We are now getting bored with what is the same in the same room at home, and…. JUST NEED A CHANGE OF SCENE… rather urgently in fact?
- Or is this the same change that would have happened normally over the last 18months, but now crunched in to September and October? Probably to be honest.
Whatever the answer, but it is really happening and causing issues with filling roles. With the laws of supply and demand if this continues this will undoubtedly have knock on impact to salaries. Great news for candidates, but for the rest of us this will also have a knock on effect on prices too.. is this the start of the inflationary cycle, the one we all expected, I wonder?
A little bird told me
My other experiment this week was live tweeting during the Credit Connect Technology Think Tank conference. The conference itself was interesting, with as normal plenty of good discussion and new ideas.
As is usual at events these days, the social hastags were up to use at the start. Normally there is not much activity and I wondered if it was possible to get some dynamic conversations going on the side?…. not much success I am afraid…
It seems collections industry people are just not twitter people, and although there was a better response on LinkedIn, it was still not that dynamic. Instagram, Pinterest, SnapChat, TikTok are clearly still a long way off!
This is of course in stark contrast to the (particularly younger) customer base, who, together with Facebook, seem to live on these social media platforms. (certainly in my house).
Are we missing a trick here?
This is of course a potential opportunity to connect, build brand relevance and have conversations with these segments. It probably really is and if you want to understand, be relevant and hire from what is a growing segment of society we are going to have to learn how use this medium.
What’s next then?
Of course, even social media itself is getting old. Many conversations have already carved off into private WhatsApp groups. A bit like a private club, these are great if you are included, but not much help if you are not.
So what is next best for a work application? I am experimenting with Discord. Yes this was primarily for gamers, but you can also think of it as an Open Source version of Slack and anyone, not just those in a limited set of companies, can join. This could be an interesting location for more interactive, yet public, discussion. I will let you know how it goes… you can join the channel here if you are interested too.
This week has undoutbedly been a long week and the tweeting also much harder work than I expected.
So it is time for a rest, maybe some TV, even a book(!), instead of social media tonight… that would be novel.
Have a good weekend everyone.
…. if you want to follow my twitterings, I am @chris_w_tweet.
