Managing through Culture Change in a Manufacturing Environment: An Interview with José A Barbosa – Engineering Manager at Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing CompanyWhen you recruit within a certain space over a period of time you tend to start noticing recurring trends and issues when speaking with your clients and candidates. I have been recruiting within Manufacturing and Operations for over two and a half years now and I think the most prominent pain point for the majority of clients that I have spoken with in this time has been their company culture and the resistance to cultural change. It’s fair to say that the world has changed a lot in the past 10 years with the introduction of new technologies along with various political and environmental changes so businesses have constantly needed to try and adapt to this.For Manufacturing businesses, this change needs to start on the shop floor as these people are the core of your company. A couple of years ago I placed José A Barbosa as an Engineering Manager at Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company, from our first conversation it was very clear that this was someone who was passionate about improving shop floor culture and implementing change. We have stayed in touch regularly since then and I recently caught up with him to discuss his thoughts on managing through culture change in a Manufacturing environment.What is your definition of a company culture?The culture of a company is made of all the practices and beliefs that the members of the organisation experience in a daily basis.What are the typical cultural issues that businesses face nowadays?As we are more interconnected, the members of an organisation are exposed to more cultural changes than before. Merging organisations normally find challenges such as matching national cultures, variety of perceptions related to generational differences and groups of people with different levels of technological knowledge, amongst others.Why do you feel cultural change is important?We are all continuously changing and adapting to our business’ new requirements. To do it effectively, we must be open to change. The more flexible that a team can be to work under high levels of uncertainty, the easier it will fit in future markets.Have you ever been in a business that was resistant to change?All businesses are resistant to change in one way or another. In my experience, the businesses where I have worked were always under one aspect of cultural change. In some cases the business was taken over by a foreign company, in other instances the organisations were in a journey to manufacturing excellence, sometimes the change was just a management re-organisation.In your opinion, how do you actually manage through cultural change?My personal way to manage a team through change is implementing tools that improve communication. There are frameworks that point us to see a culture (any kind of culture) as if it were formed by layers. Some layers we can see, and those are the ones that I try to positively affect first in order to generate a deeper change in the perceptions and beliefs of the team.What are the main barriers to change?The main barriers are those layers that we can’t see. The habits, paradigms, preconceived ideas and beliefs that the team may have. Those are always preventing experimentation and openness to change. In my experience, team members with strong beliefs, those that are more difficult to change, once they buy into the new culture, they become big advocates of it. This only proves that the change is effective if it is for a good reason. How does it impact the flexibility of a business to make decisions?Flexibility is a big strategic advantage nowadays. It gives the organisation the capability to try new things, learn quickly from its mistakes and re-direct efforts and resources to more beneficial activities.What are the strategic/operational advantages once cultural change has been achieved?Ideally, the new emerging culture should keep the best of the previously existing cultures. This means that the organisation should be better adapted to compete in the current market conditions. It is not always the case, as everything else in this world, cultural change is also imperfect and some of the bad habits are also transferred into the new organisational culture. However there are many advantages, such as extended portfolios, an influx of new skills into the business, adoption of best practices from the same or a different industry and horizontal thinking.What part does effective communication play in achieving cultural change?Effective communication is the base of change. Change starts with clear and honest discussions and nurtures from the team members point of view. Change is implemented through the team members, and a clear message regarding the goals & objectives and what they mean for them on a daily basis is paramount. Clear and honest communication is what holds the trust between an organisation and the people working in it.As a leader, how do you feel when you achieve objectives and are attributing to company goals?It is extremely fulfilling. I feel proud of my team and I always praise them, making sure that they clearly understand what they have done and how that translates into company results. Also, I make sure that we see what has been achieved as a team and recapitulate the journey. Where we are coming from, where we are and where we are going together, as a team.We really hope that you have found this interview insightful. If you would like to discuss ways to improve shop floor culture and implement change in your company through finding high caliber talent then please send an email to carl.costigan@pod-talent.com
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An Interview with José A Barbosa – Engineering Manager at Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company
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How Covid-19 has impacted hiring in Procurement and Supply Chain
How the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted hiring across Procurement & Supply ChainExploring the challenges faced by supply chain & procurement professionals during Covid-19, and how businesses have adapted to find solutions.The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the supply chain, which has had a knock-on effect on how teams within the supply chain function and recruit. Speaking with several procurement and supply chain leaders, two main challenges became apparent. One challenge was the insolvency and temporary closing of suppliers, which caused supply limitations and delays in meeting customer demand. The second challenge was the decline in sales and reduction in margins, which hatched a difficulty in trying to stabilise balance sheets through this period. Despite these challenges, procurement and supply chain teams have worked tirelessly to find solutions to overcome these challenges and continue to bring success to their business. A solution that was proposed by a supply chain leader in the Automotive industry for the insolvency of suppliers was to insource by purchasing all the equipment needed to manufacture this component in-house. Although this could raise further challenges, this solution would ensure businesses are able to continue to manufacture the parts and products they need to reduce delays and meet customer demand. To help stabilise balance sheets, a solution that was proposed by a procurement leader in the e-commerce space, was to optimise and consolidate the supply base by identifying contracts that were affected by change in demands and extract value where necessary. For example, facilities management contracts is an area that could be optimised due office lockdowns and the new ways of working for many businesses. Maximising savings in these areas will help businesses avoid a reduction on personal costs such as laying off workforce. Clearly, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought new priorities to the forefront for supply chain teams. As a result of businesses implementing solutions to tackle the challenges above, it has changed the way teams are functioning and, in some respects, helped businesses identify areas where they may be lacking in skill. When analysing insourcing as a solution, it’s implementation can impact team functioning as this would require the business to internally reshuffle and train their present operations teams on the new equipment and manufacturing process. This could inadvertently put more stress on the supply chain by reducing workflow efficiency as the additional tasks would add to their existing responsibilities. Alternatively, after an assessment of the departments hiring budget and commercial viability during this period of uncertainty, a business could recruit and build specialist teams to cover the added work. Overall, insourcing brings with it advantages for the business and for the team as it helps to create leaner manufacturing processes and streamlines product development, which can help to improve planning and forecasting. For supply chain teams, this can be beneficial as it gives current employees greater opportunities to learn new skills and it improves the local economy by potentially opening up new job roles in the area. During this uncertain period, optimisation and consolidation of the supply base is a key solution for many businesses to avoid significant workforce reduction. However, much like insourcing, new challenges can arise such as reduction in supplier diversity, flexibility and innovation. According to Spend Matters, research shows diverse suppliers that offer “greater flexibility, better hands-on support, lower cost structures, more creative resources” tend to be smaller suppliers and having a heavily optimized supply base can restrict businesses from accessing this wider variety of smaller suppliers. This is an issue as businesses and customers are becoming more diverse and if the ultimate goal is to bring value to your organisation and stakeholders, it makes sense that the supply base for the organisation should reflect this global demographic.Although, the exercise to consolidate and optimize the supply base will help to identify areas of improvement in the team such as the need for an upgrade in agility costing and working outside a set action plan to deliver on targets. Additionally, it will help teams to hone focus in on building stronger strategic relationships with existing suppliers where you can understand their pain points on capacity and inventory to allow for further negotiation and cost reduction. Ultimately, the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on how supply chain team’s function, if businesses are successful in implementing these solutions, as evidenced in this blog, it will create new opportunities for organisations to be more competitive in the market. Examples include a stronger strategic supply base following the need for optimisation and consolidation of their suppliers and opportunities for employees to learn new skills in new equipment or even handling new procurement categories such as medical wear and personal protective equipment for staff. For the future, the Covid-19 crisis has taught teams to become more agile and to work outside of their action plans, in order to continue to hit their needed targets and key performance indicators.
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How to: Recruit and Onboard remotely
Recruitment and Onboarding remotely It’s fair to say that the world as we know it has changed, although hopefully that will be temporary; at least for now we live in a world that is entirely different to the one we knew just a few months ago. We wrote this article originally at the beginning of lockdown and of course, since then, some things have changed. One of the main changes is the focus on being in the office 5 days a week. Most offices aren't open at all and have no plans to open, some plan to open in 2021, some are open now with skeleton staff and a lot are in 1-2 days a week or just open for those who need it. Not being in the office has an impact on recruitment processes, and ultimately means that at least some of your recruiting and onboarding will need to be done virtually. So with this in mind, we've updated this article to make sure it's still relevant to the world we live in now.What has also been refreshing throughout lockdown and through to now, is seeing some great approaches to solving the problem of recruiting or onboarding when your business is working remotely. So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some examples of great ideas I have seen in the current market, that might help you solve a problem or two when it comes to hiring and onboarding new team members.Running recruitment processes:Using technology – this may seem obvious but there is a huge amount of technology available that can give you as close to a “face to face” experience as possible – Webex, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Hangouts are all examples our clients are usingOnline case studies – part of your interview process might be a case study, and we have seen clients getting creative with completing these. Most commonly, clients are emailing out case studies and getting candidates to complete them in a set time i.e. email goes out at X time and case study must be sent back at Y time, and then using a video call to reviewTesting – An excel or similar test can be done in the same way as the above, but we are seeing clients using online testing as part of their interview process. Some clients are introducing a numerical/verbal test as part of their process, especially to feel like they have done some additional screening when they haven’t met face to facePersonality profiling – Using a personality profiling tool such as DISC or Insight can give you a platform to learn more about someone, to build on your understanding of them as a person. Of course, using these methods of assessment requires someone in your business who’s been trained in how to interpret the results, but if this is something you’d like to learn more about (but don’t have the capability to implement internally), give us a shout as we can help! Team interviews – if you can’t meet someone in person and you’re worried about whether this will impact the culture of your team, try setting up an additional interview with a member of the team or someone from another department. This could be a casual conversation but getting the green light from someone else on “fit to team” might help. Face to face interviews - since we wrote this article things have changed slightly, where in some cases it is possible to meet candidates face to face. Below are suggestions for how you can make this work:Limit the number of stages you do face to face, try and keep this to one and only have really key people involved in the meeting Consider the purpose of the face to face meeting, and make sure both sides are getting value from the meeting Make sure it's safe for both parties to come in, and everyone is comfortable with itMeet in an open plan space or a large meeting room, where social distancing is possibleMake sure the person visiting is aware of your onsite safety rules and processes regarding CovidConsider other safety measures like not shaking hands, having hand washing/antibacterial gel available when the person arrives for interview, where they should wait before the interview etc.Onboarding from home:Laptops and phones being sent by courier to the new starter – with instructions on how to set up at home and most importantly, contact details of a useful IT person they can call when it arrives! Financial allowances for working from home technology – we have seen various examples of this, from allowing a new employee to buy a laptop themselves that can be reimbursed, or candidates just using their own laptops for the time being, until they can get in the office. We have also seen companies provide monthly internet or phone allowances, so candidates can make sure they have the right speed of internet or enough minutes on their contract to do their job properly. Having the right tech in place - there is loads on offer, but having a software that allows people to communicate easily via chat, call or video is essential to remote working and onboarding. Pod uses Microsoft Teams and we feel like it does everything we need. Onboarding sessions being done via video – if you have any pre-recorded training sessions, these are great for onboarding, especially at the moment. But you can also do video calls for general onboarding sessions, and run training or your normal meetings via video too. You should aim to space these out over a period of time, to ensure a new starter has enough "touch points" with the business. You can also consider linking a training session to a follow up activity, so your new trainee can go away and do a task straight after a session. I would also recommend you try and convert training sessions into follow up notes that can be sent after a video call, or create a PowerPoint that can be shared/presented during the session and/or sent through after. Training being done by live video – lectures and seminars are still going on remotely, and on programmes such as Microsoft Teams one person can be live on camera, whilst everyone can watch them present, and still interact. You can do Q&A via live chat too! Why not include some of your existing staff in these sessions as refresher training so your new employee gets to meet and interact with more people? Or get someone in the team who is an expert on a particular activity to follow up 1-2-1 with the new starter?Set up daily or regular online team meetings – make sure your new employee (or any employee for that matter!) feels included by having short daily team meetings, where everyone can just chat and catch up, in the same way you would socially in an office. This will help new employees feel like they are getting to know a business and its people too! Give a new team member a buddy that they can video/chat with – make sure your new person has someone friendly they can ask for advice, so they don’t feel like they are constantly asking their manager for things, or someone they can go to if they need to chat with someone who isn’t their manager. This will also build new social connections for new employees, and help others stay in touch! Create an onboarding pack for a new team member – think of the “softer” parts of onboarding – send an org chart with who is who, send useful numbers, send fun facts about each employee, send information about who is in different teams – this will help someone feel like part of the business! Set up 1-2-1 intro video chats for the new team member – this could be with their team, everyone in the business, or key stakeholders that they would usually interact with if they joined the business in person.Set up intro videos to introduce a new team member to any external points of contact – join the call yourself (or whoever is currently managing that relationship) and do a “face to face introduction” to key external suppliers/customers/contacts. This will also improve the handover of any relationship! Face to face onboarding - as mentioned above, since we wrote this article some things have changed and some in person interaction is possible with new team members. Here are some things to consider:On the person's first day, if it's safe to do so try and have them come to your office and meet their line manager in person. You can also cover off some of the basic induction things on this day, like setting up IT equipment!If key stakeholders are visiting the office or working there sometimes, your new employee could come in for introductions (in a safe way!) to make them feel more like part of the businessConsider doing 1-2-1 training in an office if you can, again making sure it is social distanced and safe to do so. Just because you can have some face to face interaction, don't just do the basics and forget all of the above! As you'll lose some of the great remote things you implemented whilst lockdown was in full swing. If you want to have a chat about these ideas, or just a general conversation to discuss any problems in your business where we might be able to help, feel free to reach out to me on lucy.morgan@pod-talent.com – or drop a line to your usual Pod contact.Wishing you all the best in the coming months, stay safe and look after each other.
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How to: Achieve Gender Diversity in the Workplace: Five Tips from the Supply Chain Industry
How do You Achieve Gender Diversity in the Workplace? Five Tips from the Supply Chain IndustryGender diversity is now a major issue on the agenda for most businesses, but nevertheless a complicated matter that few have solved. Women still represent only 39% of the Supply Chain workforce according to a Gartner survey in 2019 and this is something we know needs to change. We’ve spoken to female leaders in the supply chain industry to get their tips on how to drive this change. These are their insights. 1) Create an environment open to everyone It is not enough to just say that you want more women in leadership roles, you have to make changes that support this happening. All employees will require flexibility at some point, and women who have families (or are thinking of having them) even more so. If you have an environment that requires people to be in the office 5 days a week with set hours, for example, this may not work for everyone. Focussing on creating an environment where there is a flexible and open approach to working will have long term benefits across the board. 2) Play the long game There is not going to be a flood of female talent on the market overnight, especially in the key areas of Manufacturing and Logistics, which have been highlighted to us as those with the greatest need in this area. However, connecting with high potential candidates early in their career can prove beneficial. Woman tend to be more likely to stay with companies longer but when feeling ready, will make the move and can become fantastic leaders. Some women are also open-minded to working in other areas of the supply chain than the one they’re used to. It can be worth approaching them with an opportunity that lies beyond their current expertise and keep in touch for the long-term. 3) Highlight role models Chances are you already have some exceptional female talent in your businesses – but is enough being done to recognise them and highlight their careers to others? It’s almost impossible to mirror what you don’t see. If we want women to step up into leadership roles, it pays to let them have access to people who have already succeeded in doing so. The same applies for your recruitment process- if the whole interview panel and everyone involved is male but you are talking about the importance of diversity, it makes sense to have more equal representation at this stage as well. 4) Create communities It’s vital to have a strong network of other female professionals to call on for advice, ideas and recommendations. There are some great groups dedicated to women in supply chain. Make sure your business has a presence in these groups, use them, ask for help. These could be internal cross-functional groups or functional and industry-specific external networks such as LEAD or BOOM!. As a business, being involved in these groups shows your commitment to change, but also enables a broader conversation with the people involved in making that change. 5) Consider your recruitment plans/processes Change doesn’t happen right away. If you are using a recruitment agency, targets for a more diverse candidate shortlist is one way to ensure you get access to the right talent. But to have a real long-term impact on your teams, you need to be thinking in advance. Look at your succession planning; are there females being considered for all key roles? If not, what can you do to engage your internal talent first and foremost, so they know about the opportunities being made available to them? We all know timing and agility in the hiring strategy is key for a successful hire. To stand the best chance of finding excellent female talent at the right time, it will pay off to continually build your external network. Using a recruitment partner (such as Pod Talent) to track and share the profiles of the best talent regularly, means you can engage with these women and start building relationships.So how do we help solve this issue?We’re planning a proactive way to pipeline female talent for our partner businesses, for both active roles and ones that might become available in the future. We believe our method will give you a better opportunity to improve gender diversity within your supply chain and improve your visibility of talent in the market place. We are interested to hear your thoughts as well. What more do you think can be done to improve this gender imbalance? To find out more about our solution and discuss your thoughts please contact me directly on caroline.crotty@pod-talent.com.
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7 Most Important Behaviours to Have as a Supply Chain Leader
Being a Supply Chain leader requires many different set of behaviours and skills. Every organisation is different and have different requirements from their leaders, however these seven tend to be the most valued amongst employers:1. Leadership Shows integrity which drives the right action in the best interests of the organisation Displays emotional intelligence to understand self and othersBuilds a compelling vision and sharing it with clarityCan build the right organisational structures around them to deliver their vision, delegating effective decision making and activities to othersBrings the best out of peopleManages upwards, capable of influencing business direction when needed 2. Stakeholder managementBuilds and fosters critical relationships with peers, internally and externallyAble to flex communication styleRecognises drivers and goals of other business areasApproaches business issues as one leadership team – no them and usReverts back to business goals and data when unsure of right pathAble to flex to different regional cultural preferences Download this free guide ‘How to Assess Supply Chain Leaders’. 3. Commercial thinkingShows a clear focus on an organisation’s customers and a desire to understand their needsMaintains a clear understanding of market and business dynamicsUnderstands the clear link between supply chain success and business successBuilds supply chain strategy aligned to business needComfortable with budgeting processesSpeaks in terms of the value that their supply chain has brought to their organisation,showing evidence that they seek to maximise that valueMaintains a knowledge of supply chain trends and innovation that could add value to their supply chain 4. Analytical skillsUnderstands how to convert supply chain priorities and goals into metrics that drive thosr priorities and goalsShows evidence of a “flexible toolkit” of metrics that can be applied to any supply chainProvides evidence that their supply chain is data drivenDisplays the ability to interpret data and other inputs into sound business decisions 5. Problem-solvingRecognises that their role requires problem solving as well as big-picture strategic thinking.Spots issues before they become bigger problems, whether it is a challenge they have experienced before or notBuilds remedial action plans and ensures they are followed throughKnows when and how to take personal action when required 6. Change managementAble to build a business case for or against a certain change program within supply chainBuilds action plans that convert top level goals into tangible elementsShows the ability to build relevant project teamsMitigates against and plans for operational disruption associated to changeUnderstands the impact of change on different people and enables cultural acceptance of changeMaintains communication of change across relevant groups7. Continuous improvement mindsetA growth mindset to their own personal developmentChampions continuous improvements mindset across their teams to enable continuous improvement ideas to come from grass roots upwardsDisplays natural inquisition that gets to the root cause of an issueConstantly interested in understanding why and how things are doneCan apply prior experience and knowledge to new situations that lead to improvementsShows creativity and innovation to allow new ways of looking at thingsDownload the free report ‘What organisations want from supply chain leaders’.Did we miss any important skills? Email us on: hello@pod-talent.com
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5 Factors that Makes Supply Chain Professionals Want to Change Roles and How You Can Offer Them
5 Factors that Makes Supply Chain Professionals Want to Change Roles and How You Can Offer ThemIn a recent survey, we uncovered the top five things that are most important to candidates when looking for a new job. Here are our thoughts on how you can offer them.1. Provide an interesting challengeA new challenge is often the biggest motivator for changing jobs. It doesn’t necessarily mean a step up from the previous role the employee was in, it could simply be the same seniority level but with different challenges. This could be things like a new exciting project, freedom to make changes or being part of launching new products or structures. Also, when you’re looking to make a new hire, highlighting these upcoming challenges can help create an exciting job advert and job description.2. Think about how the role can developIn every job there should be an understanding of how the role can progress. Many start-ups and SMEs would say that they don’t have the size and structure for each role to progress, but there are other ways of progressing than just vertically. For example, the role could move sideways into a different department, move to a new country or take on broader responsibility within the organisation.3. Give the employee a chance to make a difference There are endless ways that an employee can make a difference, but in supply chain there are a few motivators that seem to stand out. Making an impact on the environment is top of the list for candidates when it comes to wanting to make a difference. Many candidates expect businesses to drive a well-thought-out CSR strategy. Especially if it isn’t thinking about making itself more sustainable. Alternatively, employees could take the company through a journey such as delivering new products to market.4. Provide a better work/life balanceFlexibility is key to creating a healthy and happy workforce, and can help create a more diverse workforce. And not just in terms of being able to leave work one hour early on a Friday but by allowing individuals to work around their schedule and the hours of the day they’ll be most productive. You can read more about what employees are now expecting from their employers in terms of flexible working here.5. Increased salary - not always the best motivatorMany employers fall into this trap; they still think salary is the main motivator for candidates to move and employees to stay. But as seen in our survey, this is the least valued motivator! That is not to say it’s not a big factor when moving jobs. But, if an employee is happy with the company culture and feels challenged and motivated in their role, they are less likely to move for £2K more.If you would like to benchmark yourself or your team against other supply chain organisations, you can download our Supply Chain Salary Survey here. It covers the following areas: Manufacturing, Logistics, R&D, Supply Chain Tech, Supply Chain Planning and Procurement.
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How to: Create a flexible working culture
How to: Create a flexible working culture (and why!)Let’s be honest, flexible working has often been a taboo subject (especially in the UK!). We’ve regularly heard things like “it’s your day off” when you’re working from home, or it’s been suggested that “the longer you work, the harder you work” and if you can’t be seen by your manager, you are probably not focusing on work. I will admit that as a recruitment business owner, I never thought that a working from home environment would work. I was even initially opposed to flexible start and finish times because I thought it would impact our working day too much when it came to internal meetings or client and candidate care, but I’ll be the first to admit: I was VERY wrong. There have been very few good things to have come out of the last few months, but one of them was that a lot of businesses have learnt a lot about flexible working. From what we’ve learnt ourselves and what we’ve learnt from our clients and candidates, we’ve put together this article to highlight the benefits of flexible working, what things you could implement, and the additional things you need to consider to get this right. So firstly, what are the benefits?Better work life balance for your employees – and no, this is not a “dirty phrase” - it should be encouraged! It doesn’t mean people will work less hard, or less often, it just gives people balance as and when they need it, so they are more productive when they are working! Better access to talent - not being based in one location or having flexible daily hours will make you a much more attractive employer to a lot of candidates. Not only that, but if someone doesn’t have to go to one specific location every day, you can hire people based further afield who typically, you wouldn’t have access to.Diversity and inclusion – a flexible working policy supports any diversity and inclusion agenda. Home working, flexible start and finish times and being able to work your hours at flexible times during the week allow you to hire a wider range of people. Saved costs – if all of your employees don’t work in the office 5 days a week, you may be able to save money by office sharing, having a smaller office, or not having an office at all! You may also be able to save additional money on business rates, utilities, phone lines etc. A more engaged work force – people look for independence, autonomy and trust from their work place, and having flexible working shows that you trust your people to get the job done, and will drive better engagement.Ok, so what kind of things should you consider offering?Working from home – consider allowing your people the flexibility to work from home anything from 1-5 days a week. There is a lot to consider, but home working has worked out well for most since March 2020, so consider adding this permanently. Flexible start and finish times – allow people to start and finish work flexibly, as long as they get their daily (or weekly!) hours done. Although, the longer term goal should be to shift your mindset from the number of hours someone has worked, to “as long as they get their job done”. Wider flexibility on hours – Consider letting people flex their hours to support their lives outside of work or to help them work at a time they are most productive. For example, let your employee finish work early to do the school run and dinner time if they log back in and finish in the evening or let people finish early for the weekend, if they’ve worked extra hours during the week.Unlimited holiday – if you’ve got clear targets and objectives in your business for every person, and they know what they need to achieve, how and when they book time off should be flexible, as long as they hit their targets and that it doesn’t impact the business negativelyWhat else do we need to think about?Technology – you need the right tech in place to facilitate remote working; you’ve probably had to do this during lockdown, but make sure your team have good laptops, internal communication systems, video call facilities and phone facilities to get their job done.Reporting – you need to make sure your business reporting is running well and works for you – if everyone is remote it’s harder to get the information you need, so make sure your reports are set up in such a way that they give you the information you need to run your business/team!Communication –flexible and remote working means that you have to make extra effort to ensure your teams feel communicated with regularly. Make sure that individual teams are having regular meetings, and that you have company wide comms on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis (depending on what you usually do!)Culture – culture is often why people joined you and why they stay, so you should try to maintain this as much as possible even if people aren’t together all of the time. Communication is part of culture, but there are other ‘softer’ things you can do too. Not everyone wants to socialise, but make sure you consider those who do and think about what social events/incentives etc. you can run to maintain your culture. Management – it might be time for your leadership team to learn new skills! Managing remotely isn’t hard, but it is different. Make sure your managers are comfortable with the changes but also enable them to trust their teams by ensuring they are clear on setting targets and holding people accountable. Make sure you have the right processes in place for your managers to manage effectively. Targets and objectives – every single person in your business should know what is expected of them, what targets and objectives are expected to be delivered, and what the consequences of not doing so are. If you want a grown-up culture based on trust, people need to be aware of their manager’s expectations, , and they need to take them seriously. Company and team goals – linked to the above, make sure you are regularly reinforcing your company goals. Depending on how you run your business this could be weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually, but make sure you are communicating and updating your team and business on these regularly. Recruitment and onboarding – recruiting and onboarding when everyone works remotely is harder to juggle. We have written a guide on this here but if you’d like more advice on this, reach out! We’ve become experts in the last few months. That’s all for now. If you’d like to discuss the benefits of flexible working more, or need advice on any of the above, drop me a line on lucy.morgan@pod-talent.com
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It's Chapter 2 in Pod's Evolution - This Is What to Expect
IT’S CHAPTER 2 IN POD’S EVOLUTION: WHAT TO EXPECT…It is hard to think of a time of greater change within the supply chain industry, with so many challenges to overcome. Over the last few years we have been rebuilding our physical networks to better serve the needs of our consumers while seeking to reduce end to end costs in an increasingly volatile world. But further great challenges lie ahead requiring vision, courage and leadership: How do we continue to serve our organisations, customers and shareholders while meeting our global environmental and social obligations as humans, parents and grandparents? How do we harness existing and future technologies to enhance performance while mitigating risk and ensuring security? And how do we ensure that the leaders of supply chains find their voice to drive these agendas within their organisations?Chapter 2 of Pod is all about helping our industry to solve these challenges and more. We mainly do that by delivering supply chain recruitment solutions to the most important challenges out there. People are the most important asset of any organisation and the best permanent solution to a supply chain challenge is to have the right people doing the right things in the right way.We are going back to our roots of creativity and excellence in delivery: We’ve bolstered our internal capabilities, bringing more industry specialists into the recruitment sector while launching our own internal training scheme for graduates. All to ensure that we maintain the best success rates in our sector across specialist permanent recruitmentWe have added further know how within senior leadership search across Europe and the UK, to mirror the ever-increasing focus on the quality of leadership within supply chainWe’ve strengthened our abilities to deliver multi-hire projects to support our clients through major change such as team relocations and greenfield builds within physical supply chainWe’ve recently launched the Grad Pod – a unique take on supply chain graduate recruitment that helps our customers to build a foundation of future talent that the supply chain industry desperately needsBut we want to add so much more value to our network…We have a huge and enviable network of the best thinkers and practitioners within the supply chain industry so we will now be mobilising that network to help the supply chain industry to do what we can to helpOur Podcast will bring the best thinkers talking about the key topics within supply chain to our network The Library on our website will be populated with comprehensive guides to everything supply chain, built by those that know bestWhy are we doing this?We launched Pod Talent in 2012 with a clear desire to change the perceptions of what a recruitment consultancy can be. People thought that a UK based, dress-down, values-driven and ethical recruitment business was madness. But then the industry took notice and so did our clients. We doubled revenue three years in a row and won increasingly prestigious industry awards. We were brave in the way we approached things and we delivered better results.Fast forward to 2019 and we recognised a need to get back to our roots, recommit to the supply chain sector that we love, acknowledge how the industries around us are changing and set new exciting goals for the future. And since April 2019, we’ve been busy putting our new plans in motion.We have never been about growth for the sake of it, increasing revenues and profits just because we can. We want to continue to be brave to be better in what we do – and that isdelivering supply chain recruitment solutions. Our growth plans are based on the needs of the supply chain sector and we are putting ourselves firmly in the centre of that industry.
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Supply Chain Salary Survey and Market Insights 2019/2020
The Supply Chain Salary Survey 2019/2020Our salary survey provides data to support organisations and individuals to benchmark their supply chain salaries against the market.The survey covers both the UK and the Netherlands market across most seniority levels. Supply chain functions included in the survey are: R&D, Procurement, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Planning, Logistics and Supply Chain Technology.The report also provides reflections on the dynamics that underpin shifts in salaries over the last few years and commentary on the key trends in supply chain, benefits, flexible working and relocation considerations.Please complete the form below to receive your copy.(Note: If you are on a mobile device and can’t scroll down past the form, turn to landscape and that will fix it!)
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What Organisations Want from Supply Chain Leaders
What Organisations Want from Supply Chain LeadersA definitive guide for aspiring and existing supply chain leaders: Which behaviours do organisations value the most in you?Where could you focus your personal development activities to support further career growth?How can you effectively plan a job search by understanding the value you might bring to different organisations?How can you prepare for CV writing and interviews to maximise the potential of success?Pod have placed nearly 500 supply chain leaders to many of the biggest and most exciting fast growth organisations in the world. We’ve combined our knowledge gained over many years of supply chain recruitment specialism to help you to answer these questions and more. Please complete the form below to receive your copy.(Note: If you are on a mobile device and can’t scroll down past the form, turn to landscape and that will fix it!)
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How to: Assess Supply Chain Leaders
Assessing Supply Chain LeadersA comprehensive and pragmatic framework to help organisations to benchmark existing supply chain leadership talent and assess incoming supply chain leaders with increased success:Not all supply chains are the same – how do you match your needs to the external talent market?If your supply chain leadership is not delivering what is needed – why is that happening?How do you prioritise different elements of supply chain experience based on your individual supply chain dynamics?Which behaviours are most critical within a modern supply chain leader?How do you convert your specific supply chain requirements into a well-defined job description and measurable assessment process?Pod have placed nearly 500 supply chain leaders to many of the biggest and most exciting fast growth organisations in the world. We’ve combined our knowledge gained over many years of specialist supply chain recruitment to help your organisation answer all of these questions and build a successful supply chain leadership talent strategy for the future.Please complete the form below to receive your copy.(Note: If you are on a mobile device and can’t scroll down past the form, turn to landscape and that will fix it!)
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An interview on Diversity & Inclusion with Jon & Lucy
A D&I conversation with Jon & LucyWe think D&I is something that should be shared. Spoken about constantly. Talked about openly. When there is the opportunity for discussion, we get to learn and change and develop and be better. Which is why we’re always talking about it, and today we caught up with Pod Founder Jon Dweck and Managing Director Lucy Morgan. D&I is the latest buzzword that everyone is throwing around, but what does it mean to each of you? Lucy: It means having a diverse workforce in the right way. So, putting the right people in the right roles but making sure you’re bringing in people who have different ideas, beliefs, ages, races, genders etc. For me the inclusion is a really important part because it’s important that whoever you are, you have to feel included in the workplace. You need to feel like you can be yourself and no one’s ideas, beliefs, sexuality, race, religion ostracises you in any way. Jon: I think it started off around gender, race and age, but as we move on it’s become so much more. It’s disability and backgrounds and everything that can link you to having a conscious or unconscious bias around people when building a workforce. It’s about building a diverse and collaborative workforce that delivers strong results for the bottom line. So how do you make sure you’re becoming inclusive and not resorting to tokenism? Lucy: I think we genuinely don’t have tokenism and that goes back to inclusion first. Whoever walks through our door – regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, religion – they’re walking into a workplace that allows them to be whoever they are. We have the value of individuality here, so people are open and honest about who they are. That’s our workplace and it fundamentally works against tokenism. Jon: I think we were lucky in that the first founders of Pod were two men and two women. And diversity breeds diversity. It automatically removes bias in terms of your decision making because you’ve already got a diverse combination of perspectives. But in a practical sense, we have a competency framework that we test everyone against. We’re looking for behaviours that are right for our business and the moment you start testing people on behaviours rather than what they’ve already done or what it says on their CV, you’re setting yourself up to make better decisions that are not based on someone’s bias or background. It also eliminates tokenism. We also have a set of values that are inclusive. And I say that because the more I get into D&I the more I recognise that if you have the wrong values, then you’re already driving out diverse people. What’s an example of a ‘wrong value’?Jon: Well it’s not just about the word but also about how it’s implemented. For example, a value people often have is teamwork. They define it as kind of being able to get on with the people in the room. But if you want to get drunk and go down the pub every night, you might not necessarily get on with the person sitting next to you who doesn’t want to do that. So, let’s talk about individuality instead. Celebrating the individuality in everyone we deal with is our equivalent of teamwork. We think about what makes a good team working together in the future, as opposed to ‘do they fit into our existing team.’ Why do you think so many huge brands are struggling to get D&I right?Jon: Well in supply chain there’s a specific issue which is a legacy thing. I was at the main industry supply chain conference in Europe for leaders within supply chain, and I found myself counting the number of people in the room, and then counting the number of women. It was about 18/20% female, and that actually surprised me. I didn’t see one black person in two and a half thousand people. The majority of people were 55-year-old plus white men. That’s the foundation of where we’re coming from. When we talk about D&I in this industry there’s two things going on. One, leadership need to catch up. But number two, the people responsible for recruitment are predominantly male. The recruitment industry is 75% male. So, you’ve got all these people making decisions from a place where they haven’t even realised their own bias or how they’re perpetuating things. Who do you think is doing it well currently? Lucy: I think Danone are good at it. There’s a lot of women in their supply chain and they’ve got a lot of senior female leaders. Coty and GSK also do it and it’s because they’re hiring on behaviours. Jon: Agreed. It’s organisations that have a behavioural based management approach that do it best. The moment you start measuring people not on what they do, but how they do it, that automatically starts getting rid of traditional testosterone-driven old man behaviour.How do you ensure that everyone in your office is aware of their unconscious bias? Jon: We’re rolling out unconscious bias training in our office over the next three months. It’s about teaching people a standard approach to assessing candidates. What I mean by that is that most recruitment businesses see themselves as a sales organisation and wonder how much money they can make. So, you’re naturally going to speak to people most likely to get an interview and so you’re already building bias into the process. Also, if a client engages you first past the post, it’s nearly impossible to avoid bias. You have to rush the decision you make in order to give yourself the best change of making a fee which doesn’t allow you to stand back and look beyond the superficial. So, it starts with how you engage. Set yourself up to have a chance to succeed. Work exclusively with clients. Lucy: We also apply this in terms of how we recruit internally. We’ve been very deliberate about moving to evidence- and behaviour-based recruitment. We’re at the point where people are scored throughout the process on behaviour and we don’t talk about ‘fit’ for teams. Sometimes the hiring manager isn’t involved and someone is hired for their team. We had an example of that recently. They matched our behaviours and competencies, so we hired them and then matched them to a team. The hiring manager didn’t meet them until after because we’re so confident in our process. It’s about a fit to Pod, not the individual team. As a white male, who is arguably privileged, you’re surrounded by women in your business. Your MD is a queer gender fluid person who is definitely the opposite of you. The partners of Pod are female dominated as is your management team. How did you achieve that?Jon: Lucy has just been there since I’ve started so maybe she has a better answer because it’s never been a conscious thing for me.Lucy: I think it’s because there’s an absolute lack of ego around here. We’re brutally honest and we call each other out a lot. We have meetings where we discuss what’s not working and who’s accountable for that and we do that in front of everyone. Our value of openness means we have to be able to call things out as we see them. That means if someone isn’t pulling their weight, we call them out on it. Your ego cannot get in the way of that. And the truth is, the men we’ve hired who haven’t been successful couldn’t handle that. The men in our business don’t have that ego about them. Jon: I agree. We just don’t have the classic locker-room alpha behaviours. It would never work in this business. And a lot of the types of men who work in the recruitment industry, and I’m in danger of talking in stereotypes here, but a lot of them either superficially or un-superficially have unacceptable behaviours which would not allow for a diverse workforce. Objectifying women. Feeling comfortable having a substantial number of casual work relationships. Those behaviours can be rife in businesses and it would never be accepted here. Everyone has varying degrees of privilege. You’re both white and benefit from white privilege. And you’re in charge of this business and the lives of everyone who works within it. How then are you always checking your privilege? Lucy: I support a lot of LGBTQ+ charities. I can’t always understand what people with less privilege go through – for example, it’s hard enough as a gay women, I can’t imagine what my gay friends of colour go through – so I want to give up my time and resources for those who do have it much worse. Jon: I have a very personal reason as does Lucy. We’ve both had substantial things we’ve had to overcome in our personal and family lives and that drives us and helps us check that privilege. I know what it’s like to feel like I had no choice in the world and no money and just trying to survive day to day and overcome all the challenges. I know what it takes to try and pull yourself out of that so a lot of the charities and work we do is around social mobility. For example, we work with a charity that helps kids come out of the care system. What’s your main bit of advice, because you have done it exceptionally well?Lucy: I think it’s about your hiring process and recruiting for behaviours and values. Get your values right and match what you want and what your people want as a business, and then base your process on that. Jon: The best thing I’ve heard is get comfortable with being uncomfortable. In order to change your approach to D&I, you’re going to have to have conversations that previously you’ve been uncomfortable having. Get used to it because you are opening a pandoras box.Interview conducted by Salma Ed-Wardany, Director of Digitally Human
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Jon Dweck's top 10 supply chain puns
Jon Dweck's Top 10 Supply Chain PunsWe decided our website could do with some fun, but relevant fun at the same time. So we gave Jon 1 hour to come up with 10 supply chain puns - these were the results... we apologise in advance and want to hear from you if you can do better. 1.The S&OP process within the Meat processing factory was a challenge due to the amount of steak holders involved2.The condiments category head buyer at Tesco's was embarking on some strategic saucing3.The Spanish procurement team were looking to hire a purchasing professional with a decent amount of experience. They were planning on calling him Senor Buyer4.The forestry commission were looking for a new ERP system. Sap came in to pitch but they were barking up the wrong tree.5. The Tefal factory failed on adherence to pan 6.The park furniture plaque manufacturers were comparing their production processes for bench-marking purposes.7.Due to increasing supplier costs, the combine harvester business required a bail out but their potential investors said they were clutching at straws.8.The soft drinks manufacturer nearly came up with a new packaging format but they bottled it9.Helicopter gearbox suppliers are facing substantial pricing pressure because they can’t get their COGS down10.The inventory manager at Knorr was sacked for holding too much stock.We're interested to hear from anyone who has a supply chain pun to add to our list!