SIA Musings

1602, 2021

A New Focus

By |February 16th, 2021|

As someone who heads sales — my job frequently puts me on an airplane whether to visit clients or attend SIA-hosted events with hundreds of people in attendance — I had to learn to adapt to my new world. And, like so many similar to me, we had to do a reset and learn how […]

911, 2020

SIA Musings: Economic Hysteresis

By |November 9th, 2020|

Derived from the Ancient Greek word ὑστέρησις meaning “deficiency” or “lagging behind,” hysteresis is the dependence of the state of a system on its history and can be applied in slightly different ways to the fields of physics, chemistry, engineering, biology and economics.

Used extensively in the area of labour economics, it is a great word […]

911, 2020

Conference Overview: Turning Up the Upturn

By |November 9th, 2020|

No staffing executive heading for a relaxing holiday break at the end of 2019 could have foreseen the tumultuous events that would unfold in 2020. The year has placed extraordinary demands on every staffing business and completely reshaped the economic and social landscape.

As I write this article, six months after the World Health Organisation declared […]

2107, 2020

Building Back a Better Industry

By |July 21st, 2020|

This spring, society saw years’ worth of change happening in just a few days. First came the coronavirus pandemic, which led to a health crisis of epic proportions along with a devastating economic downturn from the resulting lockdown. Then, the shocking killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer once again […]

909, 2019

Job Boards Are Hot – Again

By |September 9th, 2019|

Job boards have been around since the mid-1990s. As the internet took off, it didn’t take long for a number of visionary entrepreneurs to realize that the new medium would be an ideal place to advertise jobs. Dice, Monster and CareerBuilder (originally branded Netstart) were among the early movers in the US alongside Jobserve in […]

2307, 2019

SIA Musings: Fall Forward

By |July 23rd, 2019|

Last month, I attended my daughter’s college commencement, which happened to be at the halfway mark of my company’s financial year — as well as the point when I typically initiate an assessment of the progress my team and I are making toward our annual goals.

Typically, this assessment time means a course correction for the […]

2005, 2019

Call It Inclusion

By |May 20th, 2019|

When I was asked to write for the diversity issue of Staffing Industry Review, I pondered what diversity means, especially as it relates to staffing. One definition I found from a Google search:

“Diversity hiring is hiring based on merit with special care taken to ensure procedures are free from biases related to a candidate’s age, […]

110, 2018

Perspective: Symbiotic Interaction

By |October 1st, 2018|

The $461 billion global staffing industry supports an increasingly complex ecosystem of suppliers that offer a wide range of products and services to help staffing firms prosper. In a symbiotic relationship, staffing suppliers both enable and benefit from the success of staffing firms, not unlike the relationship established when small fish attach themselves to a […]

2208, 2018

Perspective: Bring It Home

By |August 22nd, 2018|

It seems like just yesterday you were enjoying a successful 2017, proudly and confidently presenting your 2018 goals. But now it’s already well into the third quarter, and you need to know how you are doing against those goals. This business is extremely goals driven. But even overachievers find they set their sights a bit […]

2603, 2018

Perspective: Common Threads

By |March 26th, 2018|

My colleague and co-author Mike Cleland and I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of years thinking about what is different about staffing firms that are able to grow significantly faster than the market. As founder of Charted Path, Cleland has consulted with dozens of staffing firms, typically at […]