Market update – Oct 22
The sea continues to swirl. Since the last time I wrote a market update, we’ve had a mini-budget, which was then unpicked, a new PM, who was then replaced, tax cuts, talks of tax rises, and now talks of the rises not happening. We’ve also has record rains, but with unusually warm weather, and so I thank the UK weather for being unpredictable, but reliably so, because as a business owner it’s about the only thing you can rely on since 2020.
So far, all this disruption is having a minimal effect on hiring demand. Fram focuses on mid-to-senior hires across key functions. Within our Front Office Practice, there’s definitely been a cooling within investment banking, with less M&A work and IPO’s and there have been a small number of redundancies. However, we’ve been very successful in helping VC firms hire Investment Professionals. Wealth & Asset Managers are also still hiring investment and research professionals. Our Sales & Marketing Practice is very busy, albeit more at the more junior end of our focus, and our Infrastructure Practice which covers Finance, Operations, and Compliance is busy. Taken all together, last week added up to our best week for new roles registered for months.
Managers have become immune to political chaos and are thinking about the longer-term value of their businesses, more so than I’ve ever seen before. Business planning cycles focus on 3-5 years on a rolling basis, and many firms are financially strong enough to keep focused on these medium-term objectives more than the short-term vagaries. In short, they are going for top line growth and there’s a fierce battle for market share. In my experience, those who last the course will reap significant rewards when the economic situation stabilises.
What is concerning many, though, is how to keep control of costs when wages are a significant part of their cost base – it’s not easy. To hit their growth targets, firms need more hands to the pump. However, the persistent skills shortage, mostly caused by retirement, is dragging up the average cost per hire. Middle managers are also struggling with hybrid working according to a survey by Gallup. CEOs realise they need to offer hybrid working to attract top talent in most settings (not all), or at least they should, but it’s left to middle managers to implement this policy. Half empty offices, some people in the office some remote, some unwilling to come in at all, it’s the middle managers struggling to implement hybrid policies.
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In our recent poll, 71% of people had seen evidence of “Quiet Quitting”. I’m sure if you asked the public who is “quitting”, they’d say the more junior members of the workforce. If I had to guess, I’d go with middle managers, who are burning out and mentally checking out. I’d urge all firms to speak to people at this level regularly to ensure they don’t lose high quality colleagues over burnout.
In Fram news, we’ve finally launched our non-financial services brand, Fram Professionals. This business will focus on Finance, Marketing, and Legal hires in the permanent mid-market space. We’re taking what we know already to new markets. Please like our Linkedin page and if you’ve had a good experience with Fram, we’d be grateful if you could mention it to others.
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