Madison Releases NZ Employment Market 2016 Report

Madison Recruitment Releases NZ Employment Market 2016 Report

2016 NZ Employment market now dictated by the four C’s: Change, Customer- centricity, Cultural fit; and Candidate specialisation

Leading New Zealand recruitment firm Madison today released their NZ Employment Market 2016 Report. The Report explores market trends and salaries throughout New Zealand across a full range of disciplines.

Madison’s Chief Operating Officer, Steve Jackson commented:
“We created the report in response to requests from clients for an honest, home-grown overview of the New Zealand employment market that included regional trends and salaries. As New Zealand’s largest recruitment firm with six offices across the country, we were in a unique position to do this as our consultants meet with literally thousands of candidates and employers every year. We not only understand New Zealand, but have been specifically built and grown for this market alone.”

He continued:
“In spite of gathering information from seemingly unrelated organisations, clients, candidates and locations, key patterns emerged that reinforced the interconnectivity of the NZ job market at present; namely the ‘four C’s’:

1. Change

The word ‘changeable’ summed up 2015. Fluctuating dollar and milk prices, a booming residential housing market, record inward migration and overseas visitor levels, together with huge activity in the building and infrastructure sectors all had a profound effect on the domestic job market.

• In the banking sector, there was a scramble for talented candidates with foreign language skills and access to global (particularly Asian) networks. Continued interest in New Zealand from Chinese investors, the introduction of Asian banks into the market, and the evolving make-up of our society saw Mandarin and Cantonese speakers viewed as a hot commodity, particularly in the high net worth and investment spaces.

• Traditional business support roles are evolving. The requirement for a typist with ‘x words per minute’ is increasingly rare. Organisations are now looking for candidates who can work at pace across several functions and offer a range of computer skills.
This has been driven in part by technological advances and cost-saving opportunities.

• The contact centre industry increasingly looked to recruit more part-time and temporary resource as they recognised the need to cover peak customer periods. The contact centre environment is also increasingly considered a good entry path for graduates wanting to enter the corporate world.

• In the wake of the GFC, regular restructures are now the ‘new normal’ for many businesses. This led to a consistent requirement for experienced change managers within the HR space. These change roles were often viewed as having a finite duration in a business, and hence candidates were increasingly engaged on a fixed- term rather than permanent basis.

• Within marketing, the lines between this discipline and the IT department became blurred over the last 12 months, with our recruiters increasingly looking towards the IT candidate pool in order to secure the technical expertise.

• The way we are working is changing. Our executive contracting division reported a notable increase in the registration of well qualified talent open to short-term engagements. For example, senior sales and marketing candidates increasingly viewed contracting as a way of gaining exposure to different areas and participate in exciting projects. These candidates also viewed flexible working as a way of alleviating a long commute as some moved outside of city boundaries to combat rising house prices.

2. Customer-centricity

The ‘customer is king’ and digital technology is now at the forefront of designing a personalised, easily measurable user experience. Whilst New Zealand was slow to embrace digital technology initially, 2015 saw a real push in this space, with the following implications:

• As businesses sought to utilise data to predict and react to customer trends, the technology sector saw an increase in the need for experienced data warehousing, customer and product insights, and business intelligence specialists.

• The contact centre industry started to engage with customers across multiple channels and hence invested more in training their permanent and temporary staff to meet this need.

• Given the relative youth of New Zealand’s digital market, our marketing recruiters frequently sourced candidates from overseas or agency backgrounds that had a strong digital pedigree.

• Demand for sales professionals who knew how to sell data driven solutions skyrocketed in 2015.

• Customer-centricity is becoming the driver of organisational transformation and this led to a rise in the need for specialist contractors in this area, with proven digital transformation experience.

3. Cultural fit

A prevailing theme across all disciplines in 2015 was the importance placed on candidate ‘fit’. Rather than risk disruption to the existing team culture, companies preferred to wait for the right personality, placing as much emphasis on attitude as skill set, which had a knock- on effect on hiring times.

• Within the contact centre industry, with so many training and development programmes in place, candidates demonstrating a willingness to stay in a role for one to two years and a positive flexible attitude were in high demand.

• Madison’s consulting arm was increasingly called upon to evaluate a candidate’s ‘softer’ skills such as personality traits and motivation when determining fit.

• The technology sector increasingly sought candidates with that elusive ‘X factor’ – a blend of technical and interpersonal skills, as these candidates often had to ‘translate’ big data so that it was palatable to the rest of the organisation.

4. Candidate Specialism

The ‘number 8 wire Kiwi can do’ attitude is becoming obsolete. Rapidly evolving technology and the need to compete in a global market means that many businesses are engaging specialist expertise to bring them up to speed.

• Within the accounting & finance sector, large organisations invested in candidates with specialist skill sets to bolster their growth in 2015. These included finance professionals specialising in cost and sales margin analysis, software implementations, or specialist reporting.

• Growth in the construction industry also absorbed accountants and finance managers from large complex organisations.

• Our industrial division reported a real dearth of highly skilled tradespeople in the construction and utilities areas, due in part to the Christchurch rebuild and building booms currently being experienced across Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga. With over $10 billion worth of construction projects planned for Auckland alone in the next 5-10 years, there was a huge increase in demand for project managers, electricians, plumbers and carpenters as some of these projects kicked off in 2015.

Summary

Steve Jackson concluded:
The watchword for both candidates and businesses is evolve or die. New Zealand needs a workforce of highly resilient ‘shapeshifters’ who are mobile, agile, and adaptable and able to embrace specialist skills that will allow us to increasingly compete on a world stage.”

ENDS

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