Insights

As a child I remember being captivated by Roald Dahl’s story and the names of the five children: Violet Beauregard, Charlie Bucket, Augustus Gloop, Verruca Salt, and Mike Teavee. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it’s the story of a factory that makes magical sweets and its owner Willy Wonka. Production is done in secret, because Wonka does not want competitors to steal his ideas. He has a special workforce that consists of both humans and squirrels. This is an article showing this very early story of Executive Search!

Animal blogs - we at Thewlis Graham Associates love our animals. We have dogs and cats galore. Come back to read more about all of our lovely furry friends... This month we start with Oliver the therapy dog who is having some training to stop some unwanted barking!

The latest KPMG and REC, UK showed that hiring conditions improved at the end of 2019. Permanent staff appointments rose for the first time in a year, while temp billings growth picked up from November. According to panellists, some firms had approved new hires following a long period of delayed decision-making and rising business requirements. However, rates of expansion were notably weaker than seen on average over the survey history. At the same time, demand for staff continued to increase at a relatively sluggish pace, with vacancy growth stuck near a decade low. Lingering uncertainty related to Brexit, alongside generally tight labour market conditions, fed through to a further marked fall in candidate numbers. As a result, starting pay rose for both permanent and short-term staff, and at slightly quicker rates than in November. The report is compiled by IHS Markit from responses to questionnaires sent to a panel of around 400 UK recruitment and employment consultancies.

As the Christmas holiday starts to fade into yet another memory of over-indulgence, I am sure that some of you feel the same guilt as I do, based on our failure to maintain all of our ‘New-Year’ resolution targets. The commitment to ‘do something’ about our fitness, weight, un-tidy garage etc. often seems to weaken quite quickly... Dr Matthew Bennett, Associate MBA Course Director & Assistant Professor in Strategy and Operations Management at Coventry Business School, Focusing on all themes of global automotive supply and retail processes. Previously worked in the Far East for over 10 years in the luxury automotive market.