Market update and News - August 2016

Welcome to the August 2016 issue of Six Degrees Connected – our quarterly e-newsletter, which forms part of our highly successful Thought Leadership Program.

The Market

The current economic climate within Australia has remained relatively steady with the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate only increasing marginally by 0.1% to 5.8% in June. As we enter the new financial year, the market is still relatively flat as we transition from a reliance on the mining boom and look for growth to a broader range of economic activity.

The latest GDP reading shows our economy is growing at 2.3% where the makeup of the growth is interesting with 1% mining related and consumer, business and government activity making up the balance of the 1%. The sharemarket has steadied and is showing signs of a consistent recovery. The international economy, although still fragile, has moved on from the volatility following the recent Brexit turmoil in markets.

Locally, we are seeing a continued spike in growth from the food and dairy manufacturing industry as organisations are looking to capture the Asian and China marketplace. Education and the not for profit sectors are highly active, as well as large scale business to business organisations such as freight and logistics who are going through transformation in order to achieve growth.

Skillset Demands

Skillset requirements of our clients are varied and ever-evolving.

Currently there is a high-level of demand for sophisticated production engineers and technical skill sets that can drive innovation.

We are also seeing a continued demand in digital (which doesn’t show any sign of slowing) and all things eCommerce, across all sectors, as organisations try to build their capability in this space. Most notably, there is an overriding need across all role types for a high level of commercial agility and the ability to handle complexity. This is crucial to success as businesses undergo transformation and look for new ways to gain market share and drive profitability in an ever evolving market place.

The Workforce

Within the interim or contracting workforce, there is a shift in the demand for professionals such as management consultants, PMO, change and continuous improvement as businesses look to hire experts to get quick turnarounds and help drive change. Businesses are seeing contracting solutions as a real opportunity rather than a stop-gap, even at functional head level, with the average tenure for these type of positions being six months. Talent is seeing the value in being able to transfer knowledge and skills to different organisations and build a portfolio of experience.

On the permanent side, job seekers are still showing some level of caution in leaving organisations and moving into the same industry as often similar challenges and issues exist. Therefore a highly compelling employment value proposition including flexibility, long-term incentives such as employee share plans, and personal and performance development are high on the agenda in order to lure top-tier talent.

Six Degrees News

Six Degrees continues to grow and has welcomed several new members to the team, Daniela Casino, Ailin Bonilla and James Myerscough. Daniela brings more than 20 years of experience in the consumer/healthcare industries in marketing and human resources and specialises in recruiting dynamic FMCG senior marketing and category roles. Ailin has joined us to recruit in the engineering professionals across multiple sectors, and James has joined us with a wealth of experience both locally and from the UK in sales recruitment.

The business has also been very active in driving new solutions to our client base in the areas of talent assessment and strategic talent pipelining. Please see our article on "benchmarking your existing talent to define future potential" in this edition of Six Degrees Connected to learn more.

In the last quarter, Six Degrees have held two thought leadership events in the not-for-profit and supply chain sectors. Jan Chisolm, CEO of Royal Women’s Hospital Foundation led a dynamic conversation with 20 other CEO’s/Heads of NFP organisations, focusing on how to react and plan for the major national shift in funding in the disability and aged care environment.

James Small, who runs his own consulting business, Carrigan, recently hosted 12 Supply Chain leaders along with John Whitehead of Six Degrees to delve deeper into issues Supply Chain leaders face at the executive level. He summarises the key discussion points that came out of this lunch in one of the articles, "Why does supply chain seldom run in the first three?",  in this edition of Six Degrees Connected.

Other articles in this edition include the National Association of Women in Operations (NAWO) discussing their vision for inclusive work environments in Australia and Adam Orchard, SEO Director for ZenithOptimedia Group (recently voted 3rd in the top 100 digital agencies report), talks about how SEO has changed, the next big trend and what the future looks like.

If you wish to attend one of our forthcoming Thought Leadership Breakfasts or would like the opportunity to contribute to our newsletter, please contact Lorrie Storey.

We hope you find this issue of Six Degrees Connected interesting and thought provoking.

Nick Hindhaugh

Managing Director - Talent Consulting