Jobwire Environmental Scan Report

Introduction

This report will examine the process undertaken in completing an environmental scan on Jobwire. It identifies key trends and issues in the external environment that will impact strategic planning and workforce planning, so Jobwire can analyse both the current and desired future state of its workforce (Sparkman, 2018, p.4) and describing methods used in analysing the data collected and recommendations to address these trends and issues.

Organisational Context

Jobwire was established in 2000 as a generalist recruitment and human resources outsourcing organisation providing permanent, temporary, and casual staff in the commercial, logistics and industrial labour markets. With offices in NSW, ACT, QLD, WA, SA, and Tasmania, its services include specialist recruitment, executive search, blue and white-collar temporary and permanent recruitment and HR consulting services (Jobwire, 2019). As of August 2019. The organisation employs approximately three hundred staff, thirty permanent full-time staff, and two hundred and seventy casual and temporary contract staff nationally. The company’s mission, vision, and values are designed to alert clients and talent associates of what to expect when dealing with people at the organisation. Their mission, vision, and values are also designed to help their people decide how best to service clients and talent associate (Jobwire, 2019). The organization’s key recruitment strategy is to attract, retain the best talent, and their strategic workforce plans aim to address trends and developments that will affect their workforce capabilities and capacity requirements to deliver the outcomes of the strategic plan.

External Environment Analysis

Purpose and Scope

The purpose of conducting an environmental scan is to methodically gather, analyse, and interpret data about external opportunities and threats. The environmental analysis is an important mechanism to collect the information relevant to assessing what may impact an organisation’s future (Conway 2012, p. 2). Jobwire has to make a strategic decision to diversify its portfolio. The purpose of this scan is to identify any indicators of change in trends in the macro-environment, monitor the changes and compare them to predicted trends, forecast the results based on the changes, and finally assess the importance of the changes and how they will impact the organizations strategic and workforce planning. The scope of this scan will cover demographic, technology and political factors that affect the recruitment industry

Focus and Data Collection

The most popular method used to perform an environmental scan is PESTEL analysis. PESTLE is an acronym that stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (Rastogi & Trivedi, 2016, p. 384). Political factors refer to the general political atmosphere within which the business is located. Economic factors refer to the external demand and supply factors that affect the market or industry in which the business is located (Koumparoulis, 2013, p.32). Social factors include but are not limited to factors such as cultural trends, demographics, and population analytics. Technological factors relate to the various innovations that will influence the organisation’s business. Legal factors relate anticipated reforms in legal policies or laws that will affect business operations. Environmental factors include the environmental considerations that the business has to take into consideration so that they can operate successfully within a given market. The scope of the scan will focus on demographics, which are the social factors that affect the business, political factors and the role that technology plays in influencing the business.

Key Trends

There are three trends that were identified for further analysis due to their intended implications on the organisation over the next 5-10 years. The trends are demographic changes, growth of technological innovation and political factors.

Trend 1: Demographic Changes

As the world continues to grow, it is expected that there will be demographic changes and those changes will affect organizations too. According to Sayers (2019), demographic changes is the chief reasons that businesses need to change the manner in which they do business so as to accommodate the expected diversity. The change in demographics is attributed to a dramatic increase in life expectancy with statistics showing that by the year 2100 the population over 60 years old will have tripled (United Nations, 2017). The same changes in demographics are being experienced in the job market, and they are influencing organisations too. As of 2017, 1 in 7 Australians was over 65 years old which accounts for 15% percent of the population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). The proportion is expected to grow even more over the next couple of years. Additionally, the country is experiencing an annual population growth rate of more than 1.5% which is faster than many other advanced economies (Lowe, 2018). Interestingly, the population growth is not a result of an increase in natural births but is due to an increase in overseas migration. Overseas migration continues to add an additional one percent annually to the Australian population (Lowe, 2018). This shows that not only is the Australian population getting older, but is becoming more diverse as time progresses.

Trend 2: Technological Innovations

The advent of the 21st Century gave birth to many technological innovations, with chief of them being the propagation of the internet and the growth of social networking sites. Maurer (2017) notes that technological innovations have influenced the recruitment process. Before the growth of technology, more so the internet, recruitment would be done through traditional methods such as posting on newspapers. However, recent times have changed the game with more individuals stating that their employment search was more influenced by online resources than by other factors (refer to figure 2).

Figure 2: Roughly one-third of recent job seekers say the internet was the most important resource available to them during their most recent employment search (Smith, 2015).

Additionally, social networking sites are a major trend given that individuals can access information on jobs directly from the internet. The most important site for making professional connections is LinkedIn. The site has more than 500 million users, and it is the social networking site that most people prefer to use to get their professional connections (refer to figure 3).

Trend 3: Political Factors

There are political factors that affect the organization’s ability to carry out strategic and workforce planning. The factors are relatively positive, with the first being political stability. Political stability allows that organization to operate with relative ease more so because they can earn the trust of investors. Additionally, Australia is ranked the global top five of the Index of Economic Freedom (Australian Trade and Investment Commission, 2019). Also, since 2012 there has been a reduction in central government employees, which means that majority of employees are located in the private sector which is good news for Jobwire (OECD, 2012).

Analysis of Findings and Implications on Jobwire

The scope of the environmental analysis focused on three key elements, demographics, technology, and political factors. In terms of demographics, the findings show that the workforce continues to age every year. Understanding that fact will help the organization plan by training the new generation of workers and ensuring that by the time older individuals retire, there is no skills gap left behind. Without proper planning to ensure that there is a transference of skills, there will be a big knowledge gap in the organization, which will have negative effects, which may be reflected in the form of reduced revenue and lower customer satisfaction levels. Moreover, the company will need to spend more money to train new workers. With that in mind, a succession plan must be employed. An example of how that would work is: A more qualified employee with greater experience can take a younger employee and have them shadow him/her around until they are satisfied that the younger worker can work well on their own. Such teaching is relatively cheap because the only resource that is being directed to meet the goals is the employee’s time. Additionally, the demographic findings showed that even though the population is growing, it is not a consequence of natural births but the migration of other individuals into the country. Such a finding is important because it points a sign at the multiculturalism of the current workplace. The workforce is growing more heterogeneous as time progresses and the planning must reflect the same heterogeneity. An example of how that would work is educating current staff or having an orientation class for incoming staff that espouses the importance of diversity in the workplace.

In respect to a transforming technological landscape, the only thing that the organization can do is to adapt accordingly. It is especially important for Jobwire to adapt because it is a generalist recruitment and human resources outsourcing organisation. Technology will make their work easier, given its ability to streamline the recruitment process by making it less tedious and giving access to wider pool of candidates. Failing to adapt is to disregard a very important recruitment tool. Additionally, given that it is the 21st Century any company that fails to leverage technology for business purposes will not be as successful, and it will eventually be phased off due to greater and stiffer competition. Looking at Jobwire, the organization has leveraged technology to expand its business. In respect to political factors, the organization is incorporated in a country that is politically stable, and that stability helps in promoting business growth. Additionally, the findings showed that the laws have helped in reducing employment in the central government which gives room for growth in the private sector. Tying the information to the demographic changes where more and more people from different countries are relocating to Australia, the organization has an opportunity to thrive given that they are a recruitment agency. Businesses are becoming more and more diverse, and tapping into the expatriate community will give the organization a wider recruitment pool.

Conclusion

In conclusion, for organizations to thrive in the modern business environment, they must focus on strategic and workforce planning. Proper strategic and workforce planning will require the business to carry out an environmental analysis. Carrying out an environmental analysis for Jobwire showed that there are three major external variables that they must pay attention to, demographic changes, technology innovation, and the political environment. By paying attention to those three variables, the company will create better strategic and workforce plans.

References

Conway, M. (2012). Doing Environmental Scanning - An Overview Guide. Hotham Hill: Thinking Futures.

Koumparoulis, N, D. (2013). PEST Analysis: The case of E-shop. International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences, 2(2), 31-36.

Rastogi, N. & Trivedi, K, M. (2016). PESTLE technique – A tool to identify external risks in construction projects. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 3(1), 384-388.

Sparkman, R. (2018). Strategic workforce planning: Developing optimized talent strategies for future growth. New York: Kogan Page Ltd.