“We have found the Crooton Team to be helpful and on-hand to provide us with quality candidates for singular specialist requirements which have reduced our reliance on Recruitment Agencies and have also turned around a number of high volume projects with tight deadlines, going above and beyond to support our team.”

“They are clearly passionate about understanding and meeting our needs and have delivered against some tough deadlines.”

“I would have no hesitation in recommending Crooton for their excellent, cost-effective service.”

A number of significant things have happened post lockdown that have clearly impacted business. Operating within the recruitment sector, we have had numerous new business meetings rescheduled and recruitment campaigns suspended; and just like many others we have had to review our cost base and re-negotiate supplier contracts where appropriate. 

Where we are fortunate, is that we continue to maintain strong relationships with our partners. One thing that has not changed, and is unlikely to change, is the importance placed on ‘trust’. We would like to think that those organisations that we work with, know that we will not over-promise and under-deliver and always strive to support them in any way we can. Recently this has meant offering additional services where internal recruitment teams have required some extra help and over the forthcoming months I suspect we will be called upon to support in other areas that we have not yet foreseen. From wherever these calls come, we will seek to adapt and meet those needs. 

Where we see business requirements strengthening over the months ahead, are solutions to support an increase in productivity. Within recruitment we suspect this is likely to come from new tools to help teams interact and engage with candidates in a more efficient and effective way. With this in mind we have been ‘building’ things that will deliver solutions to meet these needs. We will soon launch a marketing platform which will allow everyone to create great looking digital ads which can then be delivered to a targeted audience. Soon after this deployment, we will launch a flexible applicant management system that will help teams manage applications. 

The digital ad creation tool and ad delivery system, will allow bespoke ads to be created in multiple formats in minutes rather than days, and allow the serving of these ads via the ad networks. This easy to use system means anyone will be able to create great looking adverts from scratch, or build templates that can be amended in seconds with new vacancy details. With the creative tool plugged in to all the major ad networks, these ads can then be served wherever you want them to be seen. We are planning to offer free access to the ad creation tool to businesses over the coming weeks. If you are interested, please drop us a line at enquiries@crooton.com and we will send you login details over the coming weeks.

Our second ‘build’ project centres around a candidate management system, which will allow  businesses to manage candidate applications within an easy to use interface. Users will be able to build online assessments in various formats, communicate with applicants through the system, share comments with colleagues, review and weight applications and access insightful reports. Over forthcoming months, we will look to deploy further functionality based on user requirements and the service will be offered for free for the next 6 months with no on-going commitment. 

Our vision is to build a flexible free/low cost solution that can be customised for individual requirements. We want to create something that really works, that people want to use and that delivers real value. The tool could be managed as a stand-alone service or integrated into existing systems and in subsequent releases we will look to deploy new functionality that is aligned with user requirements. We think you know better than us, what is really needed, so if you would like to help shape the next phase of this project whilst benefiting from free access to the service, please drop us a line enquiries@crooton.com.

We’re really excited about building something great with you over the months ahead.

Depending on the sector within which you operate, recruitment of new staff could be your main priority at present. However, it is just as important to retain the excellent staff you already have.

Feedback from a lot of the candidates we speak to, regarding their motivation for leaving a company is around transparency of the ‘goings on’ at a senior level.  Staff want to feel like they belong and would like to help shape the business and have their ideas heard. When they feel that they have this level of investment and engagement from an employer, they are more likely to stay. 

When staff have an excellent bond with their manager, we have found that their commitment to the company is stronger.  To feel valued for the work they are doing is at the top of the list of reasons someone will stay with a company. And showing their value doesn’t have to be financial; an email recognising their efforts, a shout-out during a meeting or conference call are fantastic ways of recognising individuals performance, a bottle of their favourite tipple or their favourite snack is also a great way to show appreciation.  

It’s so important to raise and retain morale within your workforce, as a happy team is a productive and loyal team. 

Examples of how other companies are retaining staff:
– additional perks like lunch vouchers, extra holidays days to be taken later,
– a fun team bonding event once things return to normal,
– retention bonuses,
– additional financial incentives for x number of additional shifts worked.

These aren’t things you may be able to exercise immediately, however, staff being able to ‘bank’ incentives are just as good.

It now seems highly likely that we will see a significant increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus over the weeks and months ahead. Here at Crooton, we are fully committed to standing shoulder to shoulder with our health and social care colleagues to get suitably skilled staff permanently deployed to those most vulnerable in our society.

We are already supporting a number of health and social care agencies to respond to the Coronavirus threat from a position of strength. By overfilling permanent roles, and aiming for 110% post occupancy, not only will shortages be less acute but those on the ground will be better placed to provide continuity of care than ‘in-demand’ ad hoc locums.

An article in the Guardian last week (Care workers could be redeployed to UK coronavirus hotspots, Guardian, Wed 4 Mar 2020) looked at plans being made within the Care Sector to address the issues that are likely to arise. These included a review of obligatory background checks by the Department of Health and Social Care, that can currently take upto 2 weeks,  to see whether these would impact on implementing an emergency plan. It would seem prudent at this time for the commissioners to at least allow staff to start who have had DBS clearance in the last 12 months, whilst new ones are pending. 

Industry leaders within the sector have said that without emergency measures, the forecasted infection levels in the UK could force homes to close and residents to be moved to NHS facilities. This would inevitably cause considerable distress and further increase the burden on already stretched services.

The Adult Social Care Sector currently employs a workforce of over 1.5 million, with employees split between  permanent 91%, temporary 3%, bank 4%, agency 1% and other 1%. With a 7.8% open vacancy rate (skillsforcecare.org) and usual sickness rates typically running higher for Carers than the average for the UK economy at 4.8 lost days per year, there is already significant pressure on the workforce to maintain service levels. 

As infection control measures increase,  the number of workers self-isolating will significantly impact on service quality and delivery. The impact might be partly mitigated through a greater reliance on locum bank/agency staff and extended working hours. However, if government predictions are right, and 20% of the population are off work at the height of the epidemic, then this will clearly create some very significant problems and the situation will be exacerbated the longer this period lasts.  With the Government officials now forecasting a peak in April, there is little time to mobilise and ensure there is sufficiently skilled permanent staff available.

Care providers should look at reducing the number of open vacancies they currently carry in an attempt to reduce the impact of coronavirus on the continuation of services. With a turnover rate of staff of a little over 30% in the sector, staffing levels will return to normal levels very quickly post virus, minimizing the longer term financial impact.

Technological solutions might help care providers speed up recruitment within their sector – online services for reducing processing times on DBS checks, recruitment marketing tools to access potential candidates and screening services to allow internal recruitment teams to operate more efficiently.

A mix of technology, good strategic planning and focused resourcing is likely to help minimize the impact of this virus in the sector over the coming months. However, with forecasts on the potential spread changing by the hour, it would seem that the window of opportunity to make the greatest impact is shortening.

Results of a campaign run for Mental Health Support Workers in London.

Within two weeks the client had made 5 offers and 4 hires from the list of candidates we were able to supply.

Results of a campaign run over 4 weeks for a haulage company based in Cambridgeshire.

The company was looking to recruit 5 HGV Class 1 Drivers.

Using ‘Employer Fencing’, traditional marketing channels and search activity we were able to provide them with a shortlist of candidates, from which they made 5 hires.

1 fee, 5 hires = significant saving on cost per hire.

Unique digital display ad. targeting for recruitment. 

Back in March 2019, Facebook agreed to overhaul its targeted advertising system, following a lawsuit in the US around accusations that landlords, lenders and employers were using the platform to discriminate. The lawsuit compels Facebook to withhold some detailed demographic data from advertisers who are looking to market jobs, property and credit services. 

This would appear to constitute a paradigm shift for Facebook, whose business model has always been based on monetising this personal data. At least some of these changes were implemented in December 2019, and although currently limited to the US, it will be interesting to see what the longer term impact might be within the Recruitment Industry in the UK.

Clearly, Facebook has become an important channel for some employers to market job openings, but does it offer the most effective means of targeting the best talent and will future changes lead to degradation of targeting opportunities? Yes, they currently offer some great tools, but there are very few businesses who can rely on the platform as their sole candidate source. 

There is in fact a multitude of other marketing channels that employers might choose to use, all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. Job boards can be a useful and relatively cost effective way of marketing opportunities to active jobseekers and with the growth in programmatic, the return on investment can be more closely managed. However, as a marketing channel, it is not a particularly good way of accessing passive candidates, who are unlikely to be presented with the live job opening.

Of course, LinkedIn and many of the Job Board operators provide access to databases that potentially allow ‘passive candidates’ to be identified. This of course comes at a cost, both from a license perspective and the investment in time, resulting from search activity and the communication with potential candidates.

Geo-targeting of digital display job ads would on the surface appear to offer employers an interesting way of reaching talent working for their competitors. However, low ad serving volumes resulting from only being able to serve ads when someone is in the targeted area pushes up the cost and the inability to refine the perimeter of the location being targeted creates significant wastage.

In January 2020, Crooton launched it’s Employer Fencing product, that for the first time allows employers to access talent in a much more targeted way. This new product opens up the opportunity for specific locations (businesses/competitors) to be ring-fenced to the nearest metre, and ads to be served to anyone entering the area. This audience can then be served these messages for a period of 28 days after they have left the fenced area, allowing ads to be presented to potential candidates when browsing the web at home etc. 

This new approach to accessing talent creates some very significant benefits and allows some of the problems with other established channels to be overcome. 

• Ability to present jobs to the best talent working for your competitors. 
• Access a larger pool through the targeting of attendees of trade events (whilst at the event and for 28 days afterwards).
• Effectively target students attending educational establishments
• Remove wastage through the exclusion of short-term ‘visitors’ to fenced areas 
• Ability to create employer ads in multiple formats to maximize the opportunity to serve the ads
• Message presented to the audience multiple times over period of campaign, increasing awareness and propensity to click

We believe this exciting new service opens up access to a large talent pool that would have previously been very difficult and expensive to access.

For the time being, no single channel is likely to provide the complete solution to delivering the very best talent for employers; but with Crooton’s Employer Fencing product, used in conjunction with its Job Board Advertising, Search & Screening Services we certainly think we can improve your odds of finding some amazing candidates.

For further info. Please give us a call on 0208 124 2558