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!)​

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. 

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!)​​

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!)​​

​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