Happy New Year and here’s to a far better new year than the recent track record. I have spoken with many of you in 21 and heard your challenges of heavy process disruption, scarcity of quality recruits and an increasing expectation of delivery and outcomes. Oh, the Disruption, the Disruption!!!

It will continue in 2022 to be a difficult outlook for recruiting (sorry to say it’s just starting) and the impact of Covid will have two primary impacts that need consideration to counter:

• The workforce will be approximately 1 million people short of a normal market. This considers:
  1. Approximately three years of minimal to no migration
  (student visas, skilled or family)
  2. A larger baby boomer “roll off” to the millennials “roll on”; and
  3. Employee disengagement and skills barrier which has several sources from Covid relief options to becoming isolated from the rapidly changing workplace.
• Regional Relocation – An underlying trend of regional migration will continue (most likely accelerate) in 2022. Regional populations increased some 316,000 in 2020 which approximated with the entire population growth for Australia.

As an FYI during Covid, I collaborated with some partners I often work with in Council Jobs and Blackadder Associates where we commissioned a survey from Taverner Research to find out what is going on in the Council recruitment world. We also put together short reports on what is happening from survey results, best practices of recruitment marketing and strategy that we encounter. I invite you to check it out (it’s free) and I hope you can make use of it. (Tip: view the report of interest, as the whole report is rather long!).

eziJob Enhancements during Covid

At Leonards we feel the tension being experienced for staff@ Council/Schools and NFP’s and have been working with you on some individual initiatives and enhancements.  There have been so many that “your friend Geoff” has been working flat out on eziJob improvements in recent times. I have listed the main ones below and please feel free to reach out to Geoff or me if you want to understand more, or if you just have an idea!

Job Subscription Alerts

This is a simple email sent to your eziJob database members that have opted in (some of you have built significant numbers in recent years) that are filtered (at the discretion of the applicant) into job categories that mimic those used in Careers @ Council. The filter is featured below is on the Request to Recruit and mirrors the applicants now profiled database.

We are building with another Council a preference system that further profiles emails only to those that Council deem “candidates of high interest”. As I say till I am blue in the face, you possess some very valuable intelligence in that you often know who the good candidates are already AND the Council’s jobs page is nearly always the most “googled” of Council’s website, just saying!

This is part of a deliberate strategy of eziJob to build Councils/Schools/NFP’s OWNED space as much as possible to help with your recruitment challenge. Personalisation is the direction of the next evolutionary recruitment wave in the industry.

Additional eziJob Features

Defence Service Declaration
Applicants are requested to state whether they have served in the ADF either full time or as a reservist.

Health Declarations
An alternative to the Task Intensity Analysis has been developed for a client that is more pointed in questions asked and requires an explicit candidate declaration.

Onboarding

This has been a significant initiative that was built for Griffith Regional Council and is generating interest from the newer eziJob users. It is a simple Onboarding process that allows all of Council’s onboarding documents and standard forms to be put into eziJob and automatically tracks and ensures the candidate reviews and signs on return.

It’s very simple, inexpensive and can save many hours of paper filing and record storage uploading e.g. trim

eziJob Facelift

We have booked multiple appointments for eziJob with the beauty therapist and Geoff has started with eziSuite and the login screens. This will continue in ’22 with the major screens such as Request to Recruit and the Recruitment Process Summary the next in line.

The final look is built on a new UX we had designed for eziJob a year ago and the build is gradually catching up!

EziJob and a big Day Out

A few of you have expressed an interest to me for a half or full day session to run through eziJob enhancements and to discuss what the next improvement should be. The greatest advantage of using a boutique software supplier is flexibility and our goals are determined by your needs. The disrupted work from home protocols in 2020 and 2021 have up until now shelved this plan however we are hopeful that by July / August 2022 we should be in a great position to hold the event. This will probably be in the Sydney CBD with online meeting facilities for those who cannot attend. Watch this space and please send me topics you would like addressed, otherwise Geoff and I will make the whole agenda!

As always, feel free to reach out and we can run through developments in a private online meeting as well as any ideas you may have.

Finally, Geoff, Murray and I wish you all a great 2022 to and to stay positive as we continue our journeys.