Mentor me: Finding employment 2010/09/08

Edge the UK’s most widely read magazine devoted to leadership and management carried an article on GHM’s UK operation in their September 2010 issue.

Read the article here.

Do you think there should be a compulsory prescriptive retirement at age 65? 2010/08/16

Bring on that older workforce! 2010/08/16

Writing in today’s London Times, William Rees-Mogg Times Columnist and Editor of The Times from 1967-81 makes an impassioned plea to recognise the older worker. Surely there is something entirely wrong with having a prescriptive retirement age of 65. I struggle to understand why the government are “considering whether to abolish the fixed retirement age”. Just do it. The decision as to when one wants to stop working should be a personal one based on the established principles of freedom of choice that apply to most other decisions in our lives. While there undoubtedly is age bias in the marketplace the bottom line is if you are the true solution to the company’s problems what does age have to do with it?

At Grey Hair Management we have found you just need to give people the tools to convince a potential employer they have that solution to solve their problem. Abolish the fixed retirement scenario and let the quality of candidate – an experienced individual is actually far more likely to provide that solution – dictate market forces. With current statistical information telling us that in today’s demanding work environment one’s next job may probably only last 1.8 to 3 years, employers not just want but need people to deliver solutions and consigning experienced brain power to the intellectual scrap heap makes no economic sense at all.

Scott Kane highlights plight of the forgotten professional and middle ranking management job seekers. 2010/05/29

Pictured at the company’s launch were (l to r) Paul Kelly MD GHM, Scott Kane Founder and Managing Partner GHM USA and Lembit Opik who opened the company’s new offices in Cheltenham.

Scott Kane, Managing Partner of our US colleagues GreyHairManagement.com outplacement company speaking at the launch of their new European venture, highlighted the company’s US experience with displaced executives where each $10,000 of compensation is equivalent to one month on the job hunting trail.  Speaking at the launch in Cheltenham UK of GreyHairManagement.com, the company’s first European venture, he said “taking an equivalent £Stg rate, the £60,000 to £70,000 earning executive will likely spend at least ten to twelve months before they get back into meaningful employment”

Paul Kelly, managing director of GHM Europe said: “Jobs will be tougher to secure, with statistics showing the experienced manager is equally if not actually harder hit by the recession and more likely to be unsuccessful for much longer periods in obtaining a new working position, and with just one in five likely to get a job within two years”.

“We have examined the Jobseeker’s allowance figures for the UK and they show a quite alarming trend in the last two years,” Kelly said. “The latest figures we have relate to Dec 2009 – with for instance a 936% rise of Architects claiming benefit, 491% in Civil Engineers, 401% in Lawyers and 238% of management accountants and while percentages can often be accused of being slanted, you cannot ignore the fact that in a random list of 20 occupations amongst professional and middle ranking management job seekers, 26,430 more people are signing on year on year. And sadly I think we all know that these figures are only likely to go one way – up – when we get the 2010 figures”.

“At GreyHairManagement.com we endeavor to assist the manager in transition to return to work through tough love coupled with some hard reality checks and one to one coaching assistance in how to market themselves,” he continued. “We have a unique ten year proven programme from the US and now available here in the UK for the first time, Pathways Through Transition®, specifically geared towards the more senior professional job seeker.  Consistently, 25 per cent of our US clients who complete the programme return to work in three to four months, and just on 70 per cent within six to seven months, and we are confident we will achieve these figures in our UK business”.

Kelly continued “We have recruited 15 of the country’s most highly qualified coaches who are going to work with us, geographically spread, which will allow us to locally help our clients throughout the UK.  Put simply, we intend teaching people that getting a job, if you haven’t got a job, is now your full-time job.  The only difference is the salary differential between your ‘requirements’ and the Jobseekers allowance – usually a few thousand pounds!  But you still need to ‘work’ well beyond 35 hours a week to be successful in your job quest and frankly you will fail unless you treat it like that.”

Join the real world! 2010/05/22

Yesterday’s London Times carried a lead back page story headlined Revealed: the true extent of football’s manager cull in which the League Managers Association (LMA) bemoaned the fact ”its dismissed members had been given an average of 1.4 years in their jobs, an all-time low”

At annual salaries starting usually in the high hundred £thousands or the low £millions – often more that the average football supporter might well earn in his lifetime, they seem to have forgotten that in today’s world of work everyone faces the prospect of their  next next job only lasting 1.8 to three years.

These are the harsh facts of executive and non executive life in 2010 and at Grey Hair Management we help the ‘rationalised’ return to work through tough love and
hard reality checks on how to market yourself.

We have a unique one-to-one coaching programme, Pathways Through Transition for the more senior professional job seeker. Consistently 25 per cent of our clients who complete the programme return to work in three months and just on 70 per cent in six months.

Take a look at our website and see if we can help you win your personal job race