Report on a presentation and discussion on the skills shortage in the new media labour market by David Picking, Recruitment Director at Recruit Media

David began his talk by outlining the major reasons for the current new media skills shortage. Among the factors he identified are:

• The Information Revolution that is shaping the global economy means that there is a general need for those with expertise in communications technologies.
• An explosive growth in the demand for interactive media. New media agencies are therefore getting bigger and bigger, and need to find skilled employees to meet their demands.
• Riding the Wave: the rapid turnover of new technologies and platforms (CD ROM, web, iTV, wireless devices) has meant continuous change in the demand for media production skills, making it difficult for the labour supply to adapt to these changes.

These factors have resulted in a serious skills shortage, particularly in editorial, design and programming roles. So serious, in fact, that it has been estimated that shortages could restrict the future growth of the UK’s economy by as much as 3%. David then went on to discuss a number of issues that companies should consider in trying to meet their skills demands.

Transferable Skills

David wondered if many companies were taking too blinkered an approach and as a result were missing out on individuals currently working in parallel industries who had skills that could be easily transferred into new media. Many in the audience agreed, and had recently found high quality personnel from a variety of sectors, including engineering, education and event management.

Recruitment Tools

Here, David listed the standard tools that companies use to locate and hire staff. These included: making use of staff recommendations and other company networks; online and offline advertising; intelligent searching of the internet; acquisitions and making use of recruitment consultants.

Role of the Brand

One strategy for attracting high quality candidates is to emphasise and project the value of your company’s brand on prospective personnel. This means understanding your company’s core values and ‘personality’ and how they can effectively impact on people. For some, being able to work at a company they admire is just as important as the rewards they will receive. Your company values should be felt widely and, just as you endeavour to make your clients’ experience of working with you an enjoyable one, everyone who you interview, irrespective of whether they get the job, should have had a positive brand experience.

Internal Processes

There are plenty of things you should be working to improve within your organisation in order to ensure an effective recruitment process. You need to develop a good understanding of the correct media in which to advertise for positions, while you must make sure that the appropriate people are interviewing candidates. Here, there was a general feeling from the audience that there was insufficient training in how to interview and recruit personnel. As David pointed out, recruiting should be everyone’s responsibility, not just the Human Resources department, and companies should work to ensure that everyone is sufficiently skilled in this field.

Salary and Stock Options

It is important here to understand the key motivations for candidates and examine carefully what advantages are really offered them by stock options. David pointed to recent research suggesting that people are motivated by equity schemes only if they themselves can really make a difference to the strategic future of the company, otherwise salary is generally considered to be of more importance. In many cases, issues such as opportunities for professional development and an obvious career path are felt to be equally important in attracting and motivating skilled individuals.

Investing in the Future

If a company wants to ensure a constant supply of skilled labour, then it should identify educational institutions and develop relations with them. Work placements, and sponsorship, for example, are excellent opportunities for companies to nurture young talent. This should also apply to existing staff: emphasise the importance of training and encourage professional development by making training allowances a standard part of any staff package. David approved of one company in which ‘playtime’ was always set aside once a month, giving staff the chance to learn and experiment as creatively as possible, free from any commercial restrictions.

 

This NMK event took place in September 2000