Audit First. Grow Faster: Why Brand Intelligence is the New Growth Strategy

Before you pour another pound or dollar into marketing, outreach, or sales acceleration, ask yourself a simple but often overlooked question: Does your brand say what you think it says? It’s a question that can make even the most confident business leader pause. Because behind every ambitious growth plan lies an assumption that your brand […]

Before you pour another pound or dollar into marketing, outreach, or sales acceleration, ask yourself a simple but often overlooked question:

Does your brand say what you think it says?

It’s a question that can make even the most confident business leader pause. Because behind every ambitious growth plan lies an assumption that your brand is clear, credible, and consistent enough to support it. Yet, for many organisations, that assumption goes untested.

At Jefferson Locke, our Brand Intelligence practice, headed by Nicola Fish, exists to give business leaders the clarity and confidence to grow from the right foundation. Through a structured, independent Brand Audit, we uncover how your brand is truly performing and how well it aligns with your ambition.

The Power of Perspective

When you live inside a business every day, it’s easy to lose objectivity. You know what your brand stands for, or at least what you believe it does. But what your clients, prospects, and even your own people perceive might be very different.

Our Brand Audit offers that external perspective. A mirror held up to your business that reflects reality rather than assumption. We review five key dimensions that define brand strength and coherence:

  1. Internal alignment: Do your people live, believe, and communicate your brand story consistently?
  2. External perception: How consistently does your brand show up across the market, from digital touchpoints to client conversations?
  3. Customer experience: What’s it really like to buy from you from first contact to ongoing relationship?
  4. Competitive positioning: How clearly do you stand apart from the noise in your category?
  5. Performance metrics: Are your brand investments in marketing, communications, and people delivering measurable returns?

The goal is not just to identify gaps but to surface actionable insight that strengthens your position, builds trust, and sets the stage for meaningful growth.

Truth. Proof. Trust.

Every strong brand is built on three interdependent pillars:

Truth. Proof. Trust.

When these three are aligned, growth feels effortless. Your teams communicate with consistency. Your marketing resonates with clarity. Your customers understand exactly why they should choose you.

But when even one of these pillars is misaligned, confusion creeps in. Messaging fragments. Brand equity weakens. Growth becomes expensive and unsustainable.

Our Brand Intelligence process identifies exactly where those misalignments occur and provides practical recommendations to close the gap. Ensuring your truth, proof, and trust are working together rather than in conflict.

Why It Matters for SMEs

For small and medium-sized enterprises, brand intelligence isn’t a marketing luxury. It’s a growth necessity.

In larger corporations, there are entire teams devoted to monitoring brand health, audience sentiment, and competitive performance. SMEs, on the other hand, often move fast. Driven by instinct, opportunity, and ambition without the same data or external validation to guide their next move.

That’s where our Brand Audit creates disproportionate value.

By understanding how your brand is truly perceived by your employees, your clients, and your wider market, you can align your messaging, outreach, and sales strategy with precision. This clarity reduces wasted spend, accelerates decision-making, and increases the impact of every future marketing or business development initiative.

In other words: growth starts with clarity.

The Cost of Not Knowing

Too many businesses charge ahead without ever validating whether their brand story still resonates. They invest in campaigns, content, and recruitment, all while relying on outdated assumptions about how they’re viewed externally.

The result?

Misaligned messaging. Missed opportunities. And a brand experience that doesn’t reflect the true calibre of the business behind it.

A Brand Audit brings that reality into focus before momentum and money are wasted. It’s not about criticism; it’s about calibration. It’s about helping leaders see where perception and intention diverge, and where subtle adjustments can yield significant returns.

Clarity Creates Confidence

The real impact of Brand Intelligence isn’t just in the data it surfaces, but in the confidence it gives leadership teams. When you understand how your brand performs across truth, proof, and trust, you can make smarter, faster, and more aligned decisions.

Whether you’re:

brand clarity is the foundation that supports every one of those goals.

When everyone from your boardroom to your front line shares the same understanding of what your brand stands for and how it should be expressed, your growth strategy becomes far more effective.

Audit First. Grow Faster.

So before your next campaign, rebrand, or expansion, pause and ask yourself:

If there’s even a hint of doubt, it’s time to audit.

Because in today’s competitive landscape, where every message, review, and impression shapes your reputation, clarity is competitive advantage.

Audit first. Grow faster.

Find out more: jefferson-locke.local/services/brand-intelligence

The Quiet Rise of Ageism and Why Experience Is Still the Best Investment You Can Make

Walk into most boardrooms today and you’ll hear the same refrains about hiring: “We need fresh thinking.” “We’re looking for someone dynamic.” “We want digital-first talent.” All valid. But quietly, beneath the surface of this language of “modernisation,” a subtler bias has been creeping back into the workplace, ageism. And according to recent data, it’s not […]

Walk into most boardrooms today and you’ll hear the same refrains about hiring: “We need fresh thinking.” “We’re looking for someone dynamic.” “We want digital-first talent.”

All valid. But quietly, beneath the surface of this language of “modernisation,” a subtler bias has been creeping back into the workplace, ageism. And according to recent data, it’s not just anecdotal; it’s on the rise.

A Growing, Often Overlooked Form of Discrimination

Ageism prejudice or discrimination based on age now tops the list of workplace bias complaints in the UK. Research from the Centre for Ageing Better shows that more British adults report experiencing age-based prejudice than any other protected characteristic.

A 2024 survey found that 37% of professionals in their 50s and 60s have felt age discrimination at work within the past year. And in recruitment, the numbers are equally stark: nearly half of UK recruiters reportedly view 57 as “too old” to hire.

Meanwhile, employment tribunals are seeing the effect. Age discrimination claim payouts have jumped by over 600% in a single year, suggesting both an increase in cases and a growing recognition that age bias carries financial and reputational risk for employers.

The irony? We’re living longer, working longer, and expected to retire later than ever before. The workforce has never been more multi-generational, yet opportunities for older professionals are quietly shrinking.

The Subtle Ways Ageism Shows Up

Unlike overt prejudice, ageism often hides behind coded language or assumptions that sound reasonable on the surface:

Each of these statements, consciously or not, can sideline experienced candidates. And it’s not just the over-50s who feel it. Younger employees, too, often face bias in reverse: assumptions about immaturity, job-hopping tendencies, or a lack of resilience.

But for older professionals, the cost of ageism is compounded by fewer opportunities for progression, reduced access to training, and a perception that their skills or energy levels have diminished.

In truth, the data tells a different story: older employees are more loyal, more productive over the long term, and often possess stronger problem-solving and relationship-management skills than their younger peers.

The Commercial Case for Experience

Beyond ethics or fairness, there’s a powerful business case for hiring experience over cost.

  1. Strategic depth and pattern recognition: Senior professionals bring decades of accumulated knowledge, the ability to recognise patterns, navigate ambiguity, and make judgment calls under pressure. In an age of AI, automation, and data overload, human judgment has never been more valuable.
  2. Cultural stability and mentorship: Experienced hires often become the anchors of an organisation, those who steady the ship during change. Their presence helps develop younger talent, sustain culture, and reduce churn.
  3. Client confidence: In service industries like marketing, consultancy, or B2B tech, clients often buy confidence as much as capability. Having leaders who can speak the language of C-suite stakeholders, anticipate pitfalls, and negotiate from experience is an asset that drives revenue not cost.
  4. Cost isn’t what it seems: Hiring a more seasoned professional might look expensive on paper, but turnover is the silent killer of productivity. Replacing an under-experienced or mis-hired manager can cost between 50% and 150% of their annual salary. Stability and strategic competence often prove cheaper in the long run.
  5. Diversity of thought: Organisations talk endlessly about diversity, yet often overlook age diversity, a key driver of creative thinking and balanced decision-making. Teams that blend generations are proven to make more resilient and innovative choices.

Why Age Bias Is Rising Again

If the evidence for experience is so clear, why are so many businesses unconsciously turning away from it?

A few key forces are at play:

The Real Risk: Losing Institutional Memory

Perhaps the most under-discussed consequence of ageism is the erosion of institutional memory. As experienced leaders are edged out or overlooked, companies lose not just knowledge, but continuity, the hard-won insights into clients, markets, and internal dynamics that can’t be captured in a handover document.

Younger talent may bring energy, but when experience walks out the door, so too does much of the company’s strategic muscle. In sectors where relationship equity and judgment underpin growth, like B2B marketing, consultancy, and tech, that loss is commercially significant.

Building Age-Smart Leadership Pipelines

Forward-thinking organisations are already realising that age diversity equals business resilience.

They’re building multigenerational leadership pipelines, pairing emerging talent with seasoned mentors, investing in cross-generational learning, and designing inclusive hiring processes that value adaptability and results over years served.

For recruitment and leadership consultancies like Jefferson Locke, the role is twofold:

A Closing Thought

The quiet rise of ageism may feel inevitable, a by-product of a fast-changing market, but it doesn’t have to be.

In reality, the most future-ready businesses are those that combine the wisdom of experience with the energy of innovation. They recognise that transformation isn’t driven by youth alone, but by teams who can bridge generations, translate change into strategy, and keep human judgment at the core of progress.

Because in business, as in life, experience still pays the best dividends.

The Hybrid Work Tug-of-War: Navigating Employer & Employee Expectations in 2025

The landscape of hybrid working has evolved significantly over the past few years. What once began as a necessary adaptation has now become a point of contention between employers and employees. Employer Perspective: A Shift Towards Office Presence From the employer’s standpoint, there’s been a noticeable push for more in-office days, moving from two days […]

The landscape of hybrid working has evolved significantly over the past few years. What once began as a necessary adaptation has now become a point of contention between employers and employees.

Employer Perspective: A Shift Towards Office Presence

From the employer’s standpoint, there’s been a noticeable push for more in-office days, moving from two days a week to three or even four. The key drivers? Rebuilding a strong company culture, enhancing face-to-face collaboration, and fostering creativity—elements that were once naturally embedded in the workplace pre-2020. There’s also a perception—though not universally accepted—that in-office presence leads to higher productivity.

Employee Perspective: The Value of Flexibility

On the flip side, employees have experienced firsthand the benefits of flexible working: reduced commuting, better work-life balance, and proof that productivity isn’t tied to a desk. As the market shifts from a candidate-driven environment to a client-driven one due to recent redundancies, there’s a delicate balance to strike between employer demands and employee expectations. Unfortunately though with the rise in redundancies in 2024 and beyond, employers are in a stronger position to encourage more time in the office when negotiating employment contracts.

Recruiter’s Insight: The Head-Hunting Challenge

A unique aspect that often goes unnoticed is the recruiter’s perspective. It’s been reported that it’s easier to approach and engage talent working remotely or with fewer in-office days because they often lack a deeper emotional connection to their current company. This “transactional” engagement opens new doors for recruiters. Candidates working mostly remotely don’t tend to have the same bond or sense of belonging they might have developed pre-2020 when they were in the office full-time. This lack of emotional connection makes them more open to new approaches.

What’s crucial for employers to understand is that without fostering those workplace bonds – those “working friendships” that make a team feel like a family in a corporate sense – they risk higher churn. Employees, facing rising living costs and seeking better compensation, may find it easier to switch jobs if they aren’t emotionally connected to their current company.

Conclusion: Embracing Change with a Balanced Approach

As we move forward, it’s crucial for businesses to find a middle ground that honors both perspectives. The future of work will likely be a blend, and understanding these dynamics is key to navigating the ongoing hybrid work evolution.

Finding new ways of building and developing deeper connections with their employees should be at the top of every employers list. Especially if they wish to manage employee churn over the coming years.

Embracing Change: The Key to Thriving in Uncertain Times

More recently, over the past couple of years, businesses have faced unprecedented shifts due to many factors. Whether it’s upscaling, downscaling, acquisitions, or divestitures, these changes have tested the resilience of many organisations. But change isn’t inherently negative, it’s an opportunity for growth, innovation, and a refreshed strategic direction. The crux of managing change successfully […]

More recently, over the past couple of years, businesses have faced unprecedented shifts due to many factors. Whether it’s upscaling, downscaling, acquisitions, or divestitures, these changes have tested the resilience of many organisations. But change isn’t inherently negative, it’s an opportunity for growth, innovation, and a refreshed strategic direction.

The crux of managing change successfully often lies in communication. Missteps typically occur when there’s a lack of clarity in relaying strategy to the team. The leadership must be the first to buy into the vision. They not only set the tone but ensure that every layer of the organization understands and feels confident in the path forward.

Even the most experienced companies can falter here. If leaders aren’t fully aligned, it can lead to inconsistencies that ripple through the organisation. Sometimes, tough decisions need to be made, including parting ways with those resistant to the new direction. While this can be a difficult decision, maintaining cohesion is vital for preventing a chain reaction of negativity or uncertainty.

Equally important is taking action. Storytelling and vision are crucial, but backing them up with concrete steps is essential. It’s not enough to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. Ensure your vision is well-researched, tested, and embraced by everyone from the leadership team down. Without thorough preparation and genuine commitment, even the most compelling vision can fall apart.

Every business should aim to be bigger than any individual within it, from the CEO down. Over time, the brand should be self-sustaining, with core values and a clear vision that remains consistent regardless of who comes and goes. It’s a collective effort, a journey where everyone contributes, whether short-term, mid-term, or long-term.

By leaning into these strategies, organisations can navigate change successfully, ensuring they emerge stronger and more connected than ever.

Should you be about to embark on your own transformation or struggling to meet current key objectives, then get in touch with us for a confidential, no obligation conversation and find out how we can support you on your journey.

Jefferson Locke: 2024 in Review and Outlook for 2025 and Beyond

2024: A Year of Preparation and Transition 2024 has been a transformative year for Jefferson Locke, with each of our three core divisions—Recruitment, Leadership Development, and Mergers & Acquisitions—navigating unique challenges and opportunities. Recruitment In recruitment, we observed a dichotomy between executive search and contingency recruitment. While contingency recruitment experienced slower growth due to client […]

2024: A Year of Preparation and Transition

2024 has been a transformative year for Jefferson Locke, with each of our three core divisions—Recruitment, Leadership Development, and Mergers & Acquisitions—navigating unique challenges and opportunities.

Recruitment

In recruitment, we observed a dichotomy between executive search and contingency recruitment. While contingency recruitment experienced slower growth due to client restructuring and cautious hiring strategies, executive search told a different story. There has been a strong focus on senior-level hires, particularly in the UK and US, with Q4 marking a surge in activity as businesses positioned themselves for 2025. This contrast highlights the evolving priorities of organizations preparing for long-term growth.

Leadership Development

Our Leadership Development division maintained steady performance throughout the year. Post-restructuring, companies have shown an unwavering commitment to investing in their leadership teams, from CEOs to senior managers, ensuring readiness for transformative change. Additionally, our involvement in AI-focused leadership training and automation programs has been a highlight of 2024, signaling a forward-thinking approach to emerging technologies. This trend is set to accelerate, with significant growth anticipated in 2025.

Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)

While M&A activity showed steady growth in 2024, it fell short of our initial projections. However, this year has been one of groundwork and preparation. We anticipate a wave of consolidation within the marketing agency sector, with smaller agencies being acquired by larger networks or independents as they expand into new markets. Our team has been instrumental in preparing clients to go to market, setting the stage for what we believe will be a dynamic period of growth from 2025 to 2028.

Outlook for 2025 and Beyond

As we move into 2025, we foresee steady growth across all divisions, bolstered by the optimism shared by CEOs and business leaders, despite broader economic caution. Recruitment is expected to gain momentum, particularly at senior levels, while Leadership Development will capitalize on increasing investments in AI and automation. M&A activity is set to thrive as market consolidation gains pace.

At Jefferson Locke, we believe 2025 will be a year of opportunity and expansion, laying the groundwork for sustained growth through 2028. We remain committed to supporting our clients through change and innovation, ensuring they are equipped to thrive in an evolving landscape.

From all of us at Jefferson Locke, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. We look forward to partnering with you in 2025 and beyond.

Workplace inclusivity: what it is, why it matters – and how to achieve it

Think of workplace inclusivity, and you’ll probably envision an office filled with people of different ages, ethnicities, religions and lifestyles. Sound about right? In actual fact, achieving a truly inclusive workplace involves a little more than putting together a team of people with diverse lifestyles, cultures and backgrounds – though that’s a great start. So, […]

Think of workplace inclusivity, and you’ll probably envision an office filled with people of different ages, ethnicities, religions and lifestyles. Sound about right?

In actual fact, achieving a truly inclusive workplace involves a little more than putting together a team of people with diverse lifestyles, cultures and backgrounds – though that’s a great start.

So, let’s dig a little deeper into just what we mean by workplace inclusivity, what benefits it brings, and how to achieve it.

Diversity vs inclusivity

These two terms are often used interchangeably, but there’s a subtle yet important difference. While diversity is about assembling a team of people with different viewpoints, inclusivity is about engaging with and celebrating those differences. It’s diversity put into action, if you like.

So, while a diverse workplace would feature employees from different countries, religions, ways of life, sexual orientations, etc., an inclusive workplace makes sure everyone within that group feels accepted and valued.

Why is inclusivity important?

We can answer this one on both a personal and a business level. The personal and social arguments for inclusivity are easy to see: the world becomes a nicer, easier place to be when we support each other, hear each other out and respect each other’s viewpoints. That spirit of listening to and welcoming different viewpoints makes for a happier environment, whether we’re talking about a family, a football team, or a financial services company.

However, embracing the spirit of inclusivity will also benefit your business. The Boston Consulting Group surveyed more than 1,700 companies and found that those who were more diverse than the average managed 19% higher innovation revenues (the proportion of revenues brought in by brand new products or services). Meanwhile, a 2018 McKinsey report revealed that firms with the most ethnically and culturally diverse boards were 43% more likely to experience higher profits than their more homogenous counterparts. A study by Cloverpop also discovered that when diverse teams arrived at decisions together, they performed better than lone decision-makers in almost 87% of scenarios.

In short, a team in which everyone’s thoughts and perspectives are heard is going to make for both a happier and a more effective workplace. So, how to achieve this optimum inclusivity? Here are a few key steps to take towards a truly inclusive workplace.

  1. Engage with your staff

If you want to create an inclusive workplace, you can lead by example and start by examining your own relationships with those around you. Do you feel that you interact in a friendly and open manner with your staff? Do you believe they feel comfortable voicing their opinions around you? You want everyone to feel their voice is welcome and can be heard – and this should start with how they feel about speaking up around you and other senior leaders.

  1. Keep an open mind

Again, this one is a case of leading by example. If you can put your own stereotypes and assumptions aside, and grant everyone on your team the same open-minded attention, this will inspire everyone around you to do the same. Be aware that your own attitude towards different viewpoints will act as a kind of barometer, indicating to everyone what thoughts, ideas and issues can be spoken out loud at your company. Be open to the opinions of others, and show a willingness to adapt, and you’ll find that attitude ripples out from you.

  1. Educate your leaders

After yourself, the next group of people who need to lead from the front on inclusivity will be your executives and managers. Some form of inclusivity training for senior leaders will be a huge benefit to your company. Start at the beginning: what inclusivity is, and why it’s important.

You may then want to go on to cover topics such as unconscious bias – when people unwittingly make judgments about others based on gender, race or other factors. From here, you can encourage everyone to practise active listening, and to welcome different points of view. Also focus on more practical areas where inclusivity will make a difference to employees’ work-life balance, such as helping single parents with childcare issues.

  1. Form an ‘inclusivity council’

You can really help your ideas about inclusivity to percolate right through your workplace culture by forming an inclusivity council, featuring a handful of influential members of staff. You need people who show a real commitment to the inclusivity cause – and who can be a channel of communication between the workforce and the boardroom.

This council can set goals around hiring, retaining and nurturing a truly diverse workforce – and address any current inclusivity issues, such as underrepresented employee groups or lack of provision for certain cultural, religious or other needs.

It goes without saying that this inclusivity council should be as diverse as possible, featuring a range of genders, ethnicities and roles.

  1. Celebrate difference

Remember that a truly inclusive workplace won’t just hear a variety of views, it will actively engage with them. It won’t just tolerate differences of outlook and lifestyle, but will go right ahead and celebrate them.

So why not invite your employees to share their traditions with the rest of the team? That way, they get to feel more included, and everyone learns a little more about the world around them and about the things that are important to the people they work next to every day.

Consider training your team in cultural diversity. This can be as simple as holding a monthly workshop on topics such as gender identity, mental health, or social stereotyping.

  1. Promote inclusivity everywhere

Rather than hoping that it gradually develops its own momentum, you need to champion inclusivity at your workplace, making it a visible priority everywhere you look. For example, include it as a core value of your company in any onboarding material or activities for new employees, so they know right from the get-go that inclusivity is taken seriously, and that they need to embrace all views and positions.

Flag it up on your website, too: diversity and inclusivity will be high up on the job shopping list for many of today’s applicants, so you may well attract more and/or better applicants by showing your commitment to the cause.

  1. Listen

Ensuring that your staff feel heard, understood and valued is a key milestone on the journey to inclusivity. Employee surveys, focus groups, regular informal ‘everything on the table’ sessions: these are all great ways to hear what’s concerning your workforce and to start to make the changes they need.

Better still, once your staff understand that you’re committed towards a culture where everyone is heard and valued, they’ll soon adopt this mindset too – making for a happier, more welcoming workplace for everyone.

We can help you achieve greater inclusivity – and a happier workplace

The various services we offer at Jefferson Talent Group include our health and wellbeing workshops, a series of fun, engaging workshops and resources that can help improve the outlook, energy, and performance of your employees. Programmed in tandem with some of the inclusivity initiatives we’ve discussed above, these could go a long way towards achieving that happy, busy workplace where everyone feels understood, valued – and ready to give their very best.

Contact us to find out more.

The SME Executive Hiring Challenge

How SMEs Can Compete with Larger Firms to Hire Top Executive Talent: 5 Effective Strategies   For small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), hiring top executive talent presents a unique challenge. Large companies dominate the executive recruitment landscape with their ability to offer higher salaries, expansive benefits, and globally recognized brand names, all of which make […]

How SMEs Can Compete with Larger Firms to Hire Top Executive Talent: 5 Effective Strategies

 

For small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), hiring top executive talent presents a unique challenge. Large companies dominate the executive recruitment landscape with their ability to offer higher salaries, expansive benefits, and globally recognized brand names, all of which make them natural magnets for top-tier talent. As a result, many SMEs feel overshadowed and struggle to compete, believing they simply don’t have the resources to attract the same calibre of leadership. However, SMEs have unique strengths and advantages that can help them compete with large companies to hire executives. While larger firms may boast bigger budgets, SMEs offer qualities that many executives value deeply—such as greater leadership autonomy, the ability to make a meaningful impact, and more agile, dynamic work environments. For example, executives in industries like Marketing & Advertising or Technology might be drawn to the creative freedom and innovation that smaller companies can offer. In Financial Services or Healthcare & Pharma, candidates may appreciate the opportunity to drive transformation in a growing business rather than being a cog in a corporate machine.

By leveraging these strengths, SMEs can create compelling opportunities for executives who are motivated by more than just compensation. Through strategies like emphasizing company culture, offering flexible compensation packages, and building a strong employer brand, SMEs can position themselves as desirable destinations for top talent.

In the next sections, we’ll explore five key strategies that SMEs can use to hire top executive talent while playing to their strengths. These approaches will show how SMEs can compete with larger companies by focusing on what makes them unique, rather than trying to match large firms pound for pound.

 

Strategy 1: Emphasize Company Culture and Vision

One of the key advantages SMEs have when attracting top executives is their ability to offer a strong company culture and clear vision. While larger firms may provide higher salaries, many executives seek more than financial rewards—they want to drive change and make a tangible impact. By clearly communicating their mission, values, and growth plans, SMEs can attract leaders who value innovation and transformation. For example, Tech and Marketing SMEs can offer creative freedom and flexibility that larger, bureaucratic firms cannot. By emphasizing these strengths, SMEs can turn their size into an advantage, appealing to executives eager for hands-on leadership roles.

Strategy 2: Offer Leadership and Growth Opportunities

SMEs can attract top executive talent by offering something larger firms often can’t: greater leadership autonomy and personal growth opportunities. In contrast to the rigid hierarchies of larger organizations, SMEs provide executives the chance to make significant, strategic decisions and influence the company’s direction. This is particularly appealing in industries like Healthcare and Private Equity, where executives often prefer the entrepreneurial aspect of working in a smaller, agile environment.

By promoting these SME leadership opportunities, businesses can draw candidates who seek a hands-on role in driving growth and innovation. Highlighting the ability to shape the company’s future and offering a direct path to personal development can address the executive recruitment challenges for SMEs, positioning them as attractive options for executives eager for impactful roles.

Strategy 3: Leverage Competitive Compensation Packages (Beyond Salary)

SMEs can attract top executives even with limited budgets by offering creative, non-salary compensationpackages. Options like stock options, profit-sharing, and performance bonuses provide long-term incentives that can be more appealing than higher base pay alone. Additionally, offering work-life balance and flexibility—especially in industries like Media & Publishing or Sports & Entertainment—can make a significant difference. Executives often value these perks as much as financial compensation.

By adopting these SME strategies for attracting C-suite talent, businesses can overcome budget constraints and demonstrate how SMEs can hire top leaders without needing to match corporate salaries. These incentives provide value in a way that resonates with leadership candidates seeking more than just a pay check, addressing the common executive recruitment challenges for small businesses.

Strategy 4: Build a Strong Employer Brand

For SMEs, building a strong employer brand is crucial in differentiating themselves from larger competitors. A compelling online presence and positive reputation can make a significant impact when attracting top executives. Focus on leveraging social media, sharing success stories, and maintaining robust Glassdoor and LinkedIn profiles to showcase your company’s strengths and culture.

Industry-specific branding tactics can further enhance your appeal. For instance, establishing thought leadership in Marketing & Advertising or Financial Services can position your SME as a leading innovator and employer of choice. By implementing these best practices for SMEs hiring executive talent, you address common SME recruitment challenges and improve your ability to attract C-level executives for small businesses.

Strategy 5: Partner with a Specialized Executive Search Firm

Partnering with a specialized executive search firm can significantly enhance an SME’s recruitment efforts by addressing its unique needs and challenges. These firms understand the specific dynamics of SMEs and offer tailored SME executive search strategies to find the right fit for niche industries like Healthcare, Technology, and Private Equity.

A specialized search firm can streamline the hiring process and provide access to top-tier talent that might be otherwise hard to reach. This partnership helps overcome common executive recruitment challenges for SMEs, ensuring that your organization attracts and secures the best executive talent for SMEs efficiently and effectively.

Conclusion: Levelling the Playing Field for SMEs in Executive Recruitment

SMEs have the potential to successfully compete with larger firms in attracting top executive talent by leveraging their unique advantages. By focusing on key areas such as company culture, leadership opportunities, creative compensation packages, and strong employer branding, SMEs can distinguish themselves from bigger competitors. Additionally, partnering with a specialized executive search firm can provide targeted support and access to high-calibre candidates, addressing common executive recruitment challenges for SMEs.

Implementing these strategies will help SMEs stand out and attract the leadership talent necessary for growth and innovation. If you’re looking to enhance your recruitment efforts, consider seeking expert assistance. Our firm offers comprehensive executive search services tailored to the specific needs of SMEs, ensuring you find the right leaders to drive your business forward.

Explore our SME executive search strategies and leadership recruitment strategies for SMEs to discover how we can support your hiring goals. Contact us today to start building your team of top executives.

The power of the P word

And no, I’m not talking product, price, place or promotion… It’s been an interesting paradox that, for an event that (superficially at least) kept us all separated, the global pandemic has seen a huge emphasis on the power of relationships and connection. For so long, we couldn’t get together in meeting rooms or cafes: all […]

And no, I’m not talking product, price, place or promotion… It’s been an interesting paradox that, for an event that (superficially at least) kept us all separated, the global pandemic has seen a huge emphasis on the power of relationships and connection. For so long, we couldn’t get together in meeting rooms or cafes: all the more essential, then, were those other, often relatively new ways of staying connected to each other, of sharing news and providing mutual support.

We also know (only too well) how all this enforced isolation obliged companies to change their working practices – pretty much overnight. It suddenly became essential to quickly and nimbly marry your company’s overall needs and objectives, with your staff’s often very particular working requirements.

Remote working, hybrid working: change has been fast and disruptive, and has required some fresh thinking. However, some of its lessons and new behaviours may stand us all in good stead for many years to come.

In particular, it’s this sense of listening to the needs of others, and adapting your long-term game plan accordingly, that I think will prove to be a crucial skill in the marketplace going forward.

Culture is everything

Have you given much thought to your workforce culture? Many CEOs, HR teams and others may pass over this apparently nebulous concept without a second thought, but I believe defining and being inspired by your workplace culture is key to a productive, successful workforce.

A key part of this is to think about the partners you collaborate with. Do their values, culture and goals broadly align with your own? As we emerge from the pandemic, with its changes to working methods now firmly embedded into many workplaces, we all need to be ready for change.

And now, a key adaptation to make as businesses seek to consolidate after the changes and disruptions of 2020-21, is to tap into the synergy between individual vendors and partners, creating strong relationships that can benefit everyone. We’re now in an age, after all, where customer experience is everything – where customers can both share their experiences quickly and easily within large online communities, and also easily disengage from, say, a technology service that isn’t working for them. These two factors combine to make it more essential than ever to deliver a great customer experience – and to do that, you need some great creative synergies between you and your partners.

Seeking partner: shared interests… essential?

All of this begs the question: who are your ideal partners? With whom could you be collaborating most fruitfully? Should you limit yourself to working with people and organisations who broadly share your own values and culture, or can you – should you – also seek to connect with others who view things and do things differently?

 

It’s a really interesting question, and my take is: cast your net wide. Diversity of thinking, new business approaches, new ways of doing things – these can be really energising for businesses. It’s all within reason, of course: you’ll know how much shared culture you need, as a kind of baseline, when seeking out new partners. There needs to be some initial common ground, after all, in which the fruits of partnership can take root.

 

The pandemic – that apparently isolationist time – in fact reminded us all to take care over our relationships. And I believe we must continue to keep this hugely valuable lesson in mind, in our businesses just as in our personal lives.

 

Spend time getting a strong handle on what defines your own workplace culture, then look for partners that will complement that culture, even helping it to grow in potentially fruitful new directions. Lastly, tend and maintain these partnerships, just as you tended to your personal relationships during the pandemic. If you can achieve all this, I believe you’ll emerge from this challenging time with new strengths and synergies that will serve you in good stead – whatever the future holds.

 

The partnerships you choose have the power to invigorate your company and working practices. They will also necessitate change.

 

At Jefferson Talent Group, we can help you manage that change. Our change management services are just one of the strands of expertise we can bring to your company.

 

Contact us today and let us help you to prosper in tomorrow’s business climate.

Resilience training – why your business needs it

Resilience training – why your business needs it   Resilience is a term that gets bandied about a lot in business. But what is it exactly? Does your company have it? And if not, does it need it? Let’s take a moment to zoom in on this oft-discussed (yet sometimes misunderstood) quality. How do you […]

Resilience training – why your business needs it

 

Resilience is a term that gets bandied about a lot in business. But what is it exactly? Does your company have it? And if not, does it need it?

Let’s take a moment to zoom in on this oft-discussed (yet sometimes misunderstood) quality.

How do you define resilience?

Elsewhere on our website, we’ve defined resilience as the ability to bounce back through challenging times. And let’s face it, times haven’t come much more challenging than the past couple of years.

The global pandemic has affected us all differently. While some of us were directly affected by the illness, others experienced increased anxiety as we monitored how close the illness might come to touching our lives. More than this, though, virtually all of us had to adapt – and fast – to radically new ways of working.

The ’Years of Peak Resilience’

The traditional office – with its easy sociability, comforting routines, water-cooler catch-ups and psychological home/work demarcation – vanished overnight. All of a sudden, work was just you, your kitchen, something called Zoom, and a (hopefully) strong internet connection.

Fast adaptation was the order of the day. And the demands of the virtual world meant you had to look like you were breezing your way through it all. Zoom etiquette meant tidying the kitchen and pinning that fixed smile on your face – even if, internally, you were a bundle of nerves and questions.

Indeed, if resilience can be defined as the ability to survive and even prosper through challenging, disruptive circumstances, then 2020-21 have been the Years of Peak Resilience.

So, resilience – that ability to not be buffeted by adversity, but to progress and even grow from it – is a key attribute in today’s rapidly changing business world, for employees and companies alike. Resilient people are flexible in their thinking, they have the energy and mental agility to quickly change tack and keep on flourishing – and to consistently perform at their highest level, however the parameters around them are changing.

How strong resilience can benefit your business

Let’s unpack some of the ways in which strong resilience across a company and staff can help you to negotiate the choppy waters of today’s business world.

Inspire a more positive mindset

For one thing, you’ll find that a focus on resilience brings benefits for your staff wellbeing. It can bring a new state of mind: an awareness, for example, that a certain level of stress isn’t in fact the end of the world – that it goes with the territory and can be talked about, shared, managed, even harvested for insights and new ways of working.

Teach your staff to manage and live with a reasonable level of stress, rather than seeing it as some unpredictable prowling beast, ever ready to strike, and you’ll have yourself a happier, healthier workforce. You know the next part of the equation: happy, healthy workforce equals improved performance, staff retention, customer satisfaction, and bottom lines.

Improve employee adaptability

Resilience also means, perhaps most obviously, adaptability: the ability to weather the storms. And we’ve seen some storms lately, haven’t we? Business has always been a world where you have to look around you, track changes and adapt in order to flourish. The pandemic was simply this landscape magnified.

A feature of resilience that’s closely linked to adaptability is the ability to learn and innovate – and to make allowances for that process to happen across your team. So, for example, you may see some key new areas in which your staff can keep developing, learn new skills, and step up their performance.

This is all well and good, but be aware that these new techniques will present a steep learning curve for your team. A lot to learn, fast, can impact morale and stress levels – on their resilience, in short. So make sure that you have the training in place for them to get where you want them to be, and be realistic in your expectations of what you want staff to be capable of, and within what time frame.

Nurture a sense of community

Your company resilience can easily come under strain if there are difficult personal relationships within. It’s important to encourage all staff to be both calm and open when discussing any difficulties with colleagues – and also to challenge their own thinking patterns, along with the ways in which they interpret difficult situations. Is that person really out to get me – or are they merely suggesting that, say, this task could be performed in a different way?

Support career development plans

Finally, resilience training should be an integral part of any career development plan. Learning to cope with obstacles in their path – a dispute with a colleague, a challenging project, some negative feedback – will really help your employees develop their skillset, leaving them feeling more empowered, self-determining and, ultimately, happy at work. Again, cue a host of benefits to you, their employer.

Resilience training from Jefferson Talent Group

Part of a wider suite of wellbeing services we can offer to you and your team, our resilience training and support provides a variety of strategies, diagnostics, tactics and tools that help foster greater resilience across your workforce – from teams through managers to leaders.

We’ve built our resilience training to focus specifically on bouncing back from challenges and adversity, on developing that personal strength and wisdom that will stand you all in even better stead the next time challenges come along.

And when they do (as they will), under our guidance you’ll be able to look those challenges in the eye and see them for what they are: opportunities to learn, renew and keep growing as people and as a company.

Resilience, at both a personal and company level, is a quality that will only grow in importance in our increasingly fast-paced, volatile business world. Resilience training for you and your staff can help you all to not only survive change – but to prosper from it, learning new and productive ways of doing things and ensuring a happy, healthy staff who feel empowered with their own career directions.

Why not see what our resilience training and support could bring to your workforce? Contact us today to find out more.

 

The pandemic’s B2B marketing landscape is here to stay

Some interesting insights came out of the recent Creative Transformation Festival, hosted by The Drum in partnership with Seismic. An online panel of marketing professionals chewed over the latest developments in B2B marketing – and offered some sharp insights into how contemporary business marketers can stay ahead of the pack. Speakers included Anamika Gupta, director […]

Some interesting insights came out of the recent Creative Transformation Festival, hosted by The Drum in partnership with Seismic.

An online panel of marketing professionals chewed over the latest developments in B2B marketing – and offered some sharp insights into how contemporary business marketers can stay ahead of the pack.

Speakers included Anamika Gupta, director and head of customer marketing at Fujitsu America, Inc; Winnie Palmer, EMEA head of marketing at Seismic; and Sam Poulter, head of corporate branding at AP Moller, Maersk.

First up, Gupta offered up three must-dos for brands aiming to stay competitive in the B2B marketplace. These were:

–         Stay relevant. Stay close to your customers – and to their customers – by taking every opportunity to listen to what they have to say. And, when you need to communicate with them, talk directly to them, rather than via mass mailouts.

–         Stay human. No less than its B2C counterpart, B2B marketing is ultimately all about creating human connections, not auto-generated email campaigns.

–         Stay focused. Be clear on your brand’s essential quest – on what you are contributing to the greater good. Embed that quest deeply into all your business goals. Stick with it, don’t just talk about it: today’s consumers are savvy, and demanding, and they want to know that their chosen brands will follow up on the promises they make and the aspirations they conjure up.

 

Poulter asserted that, whatever other effects it may have had, the pandemic has foregrounded the importance of a human connection in B2B relationships – and deepened brands’ insights into their customers. “Over the past year, there’s been a huge opportunity to move beyond the usual business conversations and transactional discussions,” he noted. “All of our customers have needed new thinking, new solutions, new levels of flexibility. They needed help and guidance in navigating the unprecedented situation.

 

“From a human perspective, we’ve all been in the same boat together for the last year, solving problems on the fly. I think we’re all emerging from the pandemic with a deeper understanding of our customers than we had 15 months ago.” The question we now need to ask ourselves, Poulter added, is: how do we carry on holding customers’ trust and translate this into a long-term relationship?

 

Palmer, meanwhile, underlined the importance of delivering a positive experience to consumers, every time they interact with your brand – and at every stage of their journey.

 

This advice resonates – and never more so than at the moment. Where, previously, a typical B2B customer experience would have featured face-to-face contact (meetings, live events, etc.), in today’s pandemic landscape these have been superseded by digital content.

 

If we imagine this largely digital landscape continuing into the future (and specialists across so many sectors, from business to education, have posited that many of the digital habits we’ve learned during lockdown may be here to stay), we can see that it will be crucial to keep your brand story engaging, authentic and consistent across every point of the consumer journey.

 

Gupta likened the B2B marketer’s role to that of the mentor in a traditional ‘quest’ movie. The hero has a problem or a quest, and finds their path ahead eased by a mentor or guide, who shows them the strength they have within them, and how to complete their quest / solve their problem. Have you twigged who’s who here? That’s right: the customer is the hero – and the B2B marketer is the mentor, telling a compelling story that will help that customer get to where they need to be.

 

All this would seem to indicate a world of possibilities when it comes to B2B marketing – new ways to communicate, new forms within which to tell your story. Amid all this opportunity, though, we should also be aware that the sheer volume of digital content now makes it more important than ever that your stories are compelling, and your customer interactions meaningful.

 

To quote Winnie Palmer: “With all the sales and marketing communications migrating online, [the] space has become very noisy. It’s important to have a great story – but there’s more emphasis than ever on how you then tell that story.

 

“How do you identify the right channels for each customer or prospect? How do you cut through the clutter and make sure that the story stays super crisp and consistent?”

These are questions that all marketers – whether B2B, B2C or a combination of both – will do well to ponder as the post-pandemic marketing landscape starts to shake down.

A company is NOT a family

One of my pet gripes is hearing, from a company’s hiring manager, something along the lines of, “We are like a family here”. Whoah. Let me stop you there. A company is not a family. Conflating the two is unrealistic – and can be dangerous. How so? Well, within families, loyalty and love are unconditional. […]

One of my pet gripes is hearing, from a company’s hiring manager, something along the lines of, “We are like a family here”.

Whoah. Let me stop you there. A company is not a family. Conflating the two is unrealistic – and can be dangerous.

How so? Well, within families, loyalty and love are unconditional. Your parents don’t stop loving you because you didn’t come good on a promise. You don’t stop screaming for your child on school sports day because some other kid is sprinting faster – and you fancy switching allegiances. These ties are non-negotiable.

By contrast, you don’t love your employees (or, if you prefer, value them / retain them / pay their salary) unconditionally. You value / retain / pay them based on their performance – and, if you know what’s good for you, on that alone.

A Fast Company article backs me up here in arguing that it’s not healthy for companies to think of themselves as families because, essentially, companies have to make some hard decisions which just don’t apply in the more forgiving, less results-driven, and frankly very different world of family life. Continually labelling your outfit as a ‘family’ distracts from this very basic truth.

Laying people off, if and when that moment has to come, is hard enough. Pretending that you are all part of a family, and conjuring up ties of loyalty that you may – when that red line is reached – have to go back on, will make this moment all the more painful.

Breaking up is hard to do

It’s precisely when, for whatever reason, employer and employee have to part company that you really see the gulf between family and professional relations.

On the one hand, in families, going your separate ways is… just not something you want to do, whether you’re husband and wife, parent and child, or siblings. There is pain involved. Words like ‘betrayal’ may be used. Leaving a relationship or family situation is, in short, freighted with emotion, often painful – and not something to be done lightly.

Conversely, there are a great many perfectly valid reasons for quitting a job, none of which should involve your staff in feelings of pain or guilt.

An employee might simply not like the workplace culture at their current job. Other reasons, though, can be more positive: they may have found a job that pays better, offers clearer pathways forwards, or more closely aligns with their interests and passions.

None of these reasons are in any way a betrayal. People quit their jobs all the time, and for all sorts of (reasonable!) reasons. With so many companies out there that would welcome (and pay for) their expertise and skills, why would an employee tie themselves to the one outfit for life?

As the old adage goes, you can’t change your family. Not so with your company. Work is not a permanent commitment: rather, it’s a place where staff hope to feel as valued, fulfilled and remunerated as possible. If some other workplace seems to offer a more enticing mix of those factors, those workers are perfectly within their rights to switch allegiance.

It could be damaging for your employees to start thinking of your company as a ‘family’, as they may then feel reluctant to leave (even if presented with any of the sound reasons for moving that we outlined above), fearful that leaving would constitute some form of betrayal.

There is no need for them to think like this – and you should not allow them to.

Don’t try to persuade me that, if the tables were turned, you would have any such scruples about letting those employees go. No misguided sense of ‘family’ would stop you making the right business decision.

What’s love got to do with it?

Don’t, please, get the L- word mixed up in here. Yes (all being well) you love your family. You love your partner. You love your close friends.

You do not *love* your staff.

This is down to the simple fact that your company is not a person, no matter how much today’s more touchy-feely outfits might like to portray themselves as such. Your company may have lots of great things going for you – great salaries, generous holiday provision, flexible working, extraordinary Italian coffee machine. You may, in short, be an admirable employer and a really enriching part of your employees’ life.

At its most essential, however, your company is an entity that – of course – has to do its utmost to keep prospering financially. And if one day a certain employee no longer figures in your visions of prosperity, you will not feel hamstrung by family-style ties of loyalty when it comes to letting that person go.

So, by all means, encourage your staff to revel in their work; to feel blessed at finding a company that fits so well with their aspirations, interests, financial needs and other life commitments. But – if another role comes along that meets that complex set of requirements even better – don’t let them feel conflicted about doing what’s right for them. Don’t cloud their judgment with the use of the F-word.

You may be many things to your staff – but you are not their family.

Personnel changes are a fact of business life. However, there are ways to ensure that departures (and arrivals) cause minimal disruption to your company – and even make the road ahead look more promising.

At Jefferson Talent Group, we bring a wealth of expertise and insights to our business transformation consultancy – and we can help you plan any changes to your personnel and working methods with confidence.

Contact us today and let us help you flourish, whatever the comings and goings.

Just can’t get the staff? UK recruitment bounces back for Q3

Signs of post-covid economic recovery, part two… Last week, we learned that UK mergers and acquisitions had jumped from a low of just 58 in May 2020 to 153 in March of this year – the highest monthly total since those sunlit, pre-pandemic uplands. Now, following hard on the heels of that encouraging news, comes […]

Signs of post-covid economic recovery, part two…

Last week, we learned that UK mergers and acquisitions had jumped from a low of just 58 in May 2020 to 153 in March of this year – the highest monthly total since those sunlit, pre-pandemic uplands.

Now, following hard on the heels of that encouraging news, comes another window onto the (apparently vigorous) pace of economic recovery.

Research by recruitment company ManpowerGroup revealed that, as UK employers look ahead to the third quarter of 2021, they are feeling the ‘biggest bounce’ in hiring confidence in 20 years.

The company’s latest Employment Outlook Survey revealed that employment intentions for Q3 2021 had risen 13 points since the previous survey, taken at the start of Q2.

The factors behind this jump are not hard to find, of course. The recent easing of lockdown restrictions has meant that the retail and hospitality sectors have suddenly found themselves busy again – and in urgent need of staff.

Another rose-tinted headline from the survey was that UK growth was the strongest in any European country apart from Ireland. The retail, hospitality, finance and business services sectors all showed double-digit increases in their hiring intentions.

But what exactly is the Employment Outlook Survey, and what do those ’13 points’ actually mean?

Every quarter, ManpowerGroup quizzes employers across various sectors about whether they’re planning to increase or decrease their workforce over the next three months. So, a figure of, say, +10% will mean that those employers planning to hire outnumber those planning to make redundancies by, you guessed it, 10%.

The figure for the coming Q3 of 2021 is +8% – the highest for six years and, eye-catchingly, a 13-point rise from the outlook for Q2, before the lifting of those restrictions.

If we zoom in to look at the employment outlook for specific sectors, we can see that the finance and business services sector saw its hiring intentions rise by 13 points to +8%, continuing to recover strongly from its mid-2020 low of -17%. Hiring intentions in manufacturing, meanwhile, jumped from -4% at the start of Q2 2021, to +5% for Q3.

We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that two of the biggest winners were the retail and hospitality sectors. Taken together, the two sectors witnessed a 15-point jump in hiring confidence, from -7% last quarter to 8% for the coming Q3. Hotels and restaurants in particular are experiencing a huge upswing – hiring intentions here have gone from a bleak -18% to a distinctly healthy +26%.

“After the weakest twelve months for the UK’s jobs outlook in 30 years, employers are raring to get back to normal and capture the wave of pent-up consumer demand,” Chris Gray, director for ManpowerGroup UK, said. “Much of this is likely to be companies making up for hiring freezes and redundancies undertaken over the past 12 months.”

We can see similar optimism if we look at the results from a SME perspective. The survey revealed that small employers’ hiring confidence had gone up by 15%, while medium-sized employers had gone up an average of 19% in their hiring intentions.

As Chris Gray reflects, as well as being hugely positive news for the economy, this increased confidence will have another effect: a battle for the top talent. “Sectors like hospitality have never experienced anything like this sudden snapback in hiring,” he continues.

“The war for talent is hotting up. Employers are desperate to hire experienced chefs, waiting staff, retail workers and more, not least due to post-Brexit skills shortages in many of these roles.”

The flipside of the hiring-confidence coin is, of course, a talent shortage – and ManpowerGroup’s survey found that a massive 77% of employers are struggling to fill certain roles this year, more than double the 35% of employers who ticked that particular box back in 2019.

This is good news for employees, as the rush for talent is driving up wages. “In the logistics sector, we’re seeing wages for drivers increase by as much as 20%,” Chris Gray notes. “The shortage is being felt for several reasons – many drivers have not returned as a result of Brexit and fears surrounding the next milestone in the UK’s exit from the EU on June 30. Furthermore, driver training was stalled for many months as a result of the pandemic.”

The result, says Gray, is that logistics companies currently have “tens of thousands” of driver vacancies, with staff shortages seeing a 30% increase and employers seeking a balance between attractive pay offers and keeping prices down for consumers.

Are you feeling confident about hiring again, as the UK emerges from lockdown? The next 12 months could bring new faces to your company, and perhaps new working practices with them. 

At Jefferson Talent Group, our business transformation consultancy can help you plan any changes to your personnel and working methods with confidence. Contact us today and let us help you to grow and prosper.