By Marcus Coetzee, 17 June 2024.
There is some debate about the job market in the third sector in the UK. It concerns whether organisations like charities and social enterprises struggle to find qualified staff because of a shortage of skilled job seekers. My article explores the different perspectives in this debate and offers advice for organisations struggling to recruit staff. This advice is based on my experience of looking for work in the UK.
Is there a shortage of skilled workers in the third sector?
The size and impact of this sector mean this debate is significant. A labour shortage would undermine the good work of these organisations. In 2023, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) said there were 163,959 organisations in the UK’s voluntary sector. These employed approximately 925,000 people. Approximately 12% of these employees are based in Scotland where I live. The UK’s voluntary sector is nowadays a similar size to 2019 before the pandemic when it temporarily expanded to respond to the crisis.
Several voices have spoken out about the difficulties in finding skilled staff. Some articles cite ‘Running Hot, Burning Out’ – a 2023 report by Pro Bono Economics. This report captures the results of a survey conducted by the VCSE Sector Barometer. This report said that 71% of charities are finding recruitment difficult. Most of the surveyed charities reported vacancies and 83% of respondents said these vacancies were proving hard to fill. I’ve heard similar views echoed at conferences.
The 2023 Third-Sector Tracker of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) found a similar but lesser sentiment. Approximately 22% of the surveyed organisations said that finding and retaining staff was one of their top three challenges.
It seems logical that finding staff would be a problem in a country with the low unemployment rate of 4.3% (Q1 in 2024). This means there are very few active job seekers compared with a country like South Africa where the rate is 32.9% (Q1 in 2024) overall and 45.5% for people under the age of 35.
There can be many reasons for a low unemployment rate. People might be satisfied with their existing work and uninterested in looking for a new job. Some may be unable to join the job market and look for work due to an untreated chronic illness or disability. Some might also be a full-time carer for a family member who is ill.
There are also some reasons specific to the third sector. There was significant staff burnout during the Covid pandemic and now during the cost-of-living crisis. The latter has caused people to move to the public and private sectors where they can earn more money from less emotionally taxing jobs. It has also made it more difficult for charities and social enterprises to pay competitive salaries due to lower incomes and increased costs.
But on the other hand, statistics from Charity Jobs suggest that there is a shortage of jobs rather than a shortage of job applicants. Charity jobs is the biggest online jobs platform for the third sector in the UK. Its annual ‘Charity Jobs: Salary Report’ analysed the 48,500 jobs advertised on its platform in 2023. It found that the number of jobs had decreased (-22%) from the previous year whereas the number of applications increased (+50%).
There seem to be two explanations for the different views presented by the above surveys versus Charity Job’s statistics. The first is that this recruitment platform has lost market share among recruiters but not among applicants. I haven’t read anything that suggests this is the case, especially since recruiters can advertise on multiple platforms. The second explanation is that third-sector organisations are struggling with their recruitment processes rather than with a shortage of suitable job seekers. This latter view matches my own experiences with the job market in the UK.
I have been paying close attention to this job market since 2021 when I moved to the UK from South Africa. Despite being busy with my consultancy work, I’ve applied for a dozen attractive positions that would advance my career. I have signed up with all the job sites and spent hundreds of hours researching companies and reviewing thousands of job ads. I have also networked extensively as I’m inclined to do. During this time, I’ve realised that there are some simple things that organisations can do to improve their recruitment success.
Suggestions for improving recruitment in the third sector
Here are six areas where organisations can improve their recruitment processes despite constraints such as low budgets. I’ve shared what’s at the top of my mind rather than replicating the standard set of advice and tactics on how to recruit people.
Suggestion 1. Communicate more effectively with job seekers.
First, too many organisations say they’re available for an informal chat about the position but fail to do this when requested. Don’t make this promise unless you intend to keep it.
Second, let someone know if you’ve received their job application. Most organisations that I’ve applied to have not acknowledged receipt of the application. And yet many organisations require a great deal of information and preparation to meet their submission requirements. This lack of simple acknowledgement trivialises the time and effort that the applicant spends on the often extensive submission process. This ultimately reflects poorly on the organisation and its brand.
Third, if your rejection letter says applicants can get feedback on their failed applications, then actually do this. In my experience, the vast majority of organisations break their own promises about supplying feedback. This reflects negatively on them.
Finally, I understand the efficiency of a polite generic rejection letter for people who weren’t shortlisted or interviewed. However, try to add a custom phrase or two that points people in the right direction for their future applications. For example, you might say something like, “We were looking for someone with more experience in running rural business incubators.” Rather I’ve tended to receive a generic response like this one, “We understand that you will be disappointed – it may be of some consolation to you that the excellent field of candidates meant that deciding on a shortlist was a tough process.” If true, this statement certainly calls into question whether there is a so-called shortage of skilled job seekers in the third sector.
Suggestion 2. Consider which experience, skills and qualifications are difficult to acquire versus those that can be cultivated or gained relatively easily.
While working on this article, I reviewed an advert where an organisation wanted someone with “experience of making sense of complex strategic issues, and the ability to triangulate data and metrics with strategic learning.” This seems reasonable for a high-level job that appealed to me. However, another essential criterion was to have “a relevant qualification i.e. PgM, Prince 2 Agile Foundation & Practitioner.” These are not equal sets of criteria. It is much harder to find someone who can work with complex strategic issues than it is to find people willing to study one of these certifications, especially if the company is paying for it.
Organisations should therefore focus their person-specifications on those qualities that are very hard to find and achieve.
Suggestion 3. Make the essential requirements in job adverts more realistic instead of wish lists for the perfect person.
The person-specifications in job adverts describe the ‘essential’ criteria that applicants must meet to be eligible for the job. They also list the desirable or optional criteria that would strengthen a job seeker’s application. I have found the first list to be too long and the second list too short. Organisations aren’t realistic about how many job seekers will be able to meet these criteria, especially given the limited budgets of third-sector organisations.
For example, I’ve read one advert for a medium-sized organisation that said the applicant “must have demonstrable experience raising £1 million+ grants from funders.” I recall another advert for a charity that said the applicant “must be able to provide evidence of developing a strategy for a large organisation and ensuring that it is implemented at all levels.” The first job was for a fundraiser and the second was for a senior manager. There seemed to be a mismatch between the type of person who meets all the essential criteria versus the job title and proposed salary.
Suggestion 4. Consider creating hybrid or remote jobs to access a broader pool of job seekers, assuming the role can accommodate this.
Many of us had a taste of hybrid or remote work during the pandemic. During this time I realised how much unnecessary travel I used to have – time and money that could have been better used elsewhere. I don’t want to return to the pre-Covid status quo. I’m surely not alone in this view.
Hybrid or remote arrangements have become more popular. In a 2023 survey by Charity Jobs, 77% of respondents said that remote working opportunities were either important or very important to them in their job-hunting criteria. Charity Jobs also reported that 44% of the jobs advertised on its platform in 2023 were hybrid. An equal 44% of jobs were on-site and 12% were fully remote. The proportion of hybrid jobs on this platform has increased significantly since the previous year. Charity Jobs said, “Remote roles were the most in-demand from candidates. There were almost eight times more clicks on ‘apply’ than on-site roles and nearly four times more clicks on ‘apply’ than hybrid roles.”
Adverts for hybrid jobs should specify the office location and the minimum number of days each week or month for the employee to be in the office. This makes it easier for job seekers to calculate the travel time and costs and consider the position.
Suggestion 5. Be willing to employ or promote someone who doesn’t yet have all the required skills for the position.
I have managed many recruitment processes over my career. Skills shortages are much more pronounced in Africa than in the UK’s third sector. Jobs in developing countries also tend to be broader in scope because organisations can afford fewer employees.
African organisations rarely expect to hire someone who can immediately do their job. My rule of thumb was that it would take three months for someone to fit properly into an organisation and know how to do their basic job. Then it would take up to a year of ongoing training and mentorship before they have the required wisdom and skills to excel. The duty of mentorship was expected and seen as the duty of senior staff, team leaders and even consultants who worked with the organisation.
Recruitment processes therefore focused on identifying people with the right aptitude, workstyle, values and cultural fit. These are good traits to build upon.
I have often inducted employees into new roles, and mentored subordinates, team members and other consultants. It’s been heart-warming to see them flourish over time and become competent and valued assets of their organisations. But this took time. They didn’t start this way.
The pervasive skills shortages meant that employers would go out of their way to cultivate loyalty and hang on to the staff they’d invested in. Employees were also mindful of the competitive job market. This made this value exchange worthwhile and relatively commonplace.
Suggestion 6. Embed wisdom in organisational systems to be able to use less experienced people effectively.
This is especially important when there is a high turnover of staff or when it is difficult to find staff with the required skills. It is an effective way to consistently bring new people up to a high standard.
I was deputy director of a research consultancy for 13 years. We taught undergraduates how to perform much of the laborious work of our statisticians and senior researchers. This freed up our senior staff to focus on tasks that required a high level of skill and judgement. We introduced automation into many repeating processes, disaggregated work into manageable packages, prescribed workflows, built templates and established good monitoring and quality control systems. We also provided training and mentorship as discussed in the previous point.
This system provided the organisation with a competitive advantage. I’ve written about how to adopt this systems approach and fine-tune your organisation.
Conclusion
With a 4.3% unemployment rate in the UK, it is reasonable to assume that organisations might struggle to find staff for some positions. This is likely to be pronounced in the third sector where budgets are tight and frontline staff are overwhelmed and burned out. I’ve also seen this problem amplified in rural settings away from big cities.
However, at the same time, job platforms like Charity Jobs are experiencing fewer jobs but more applicants. This suggests that many people are looking for work in the sector. This matches my own experience. I believe there are lots of skilled people looking for meaningful work. .
In addition to conventional advice on good recruitment processes and organisations generating income to pay better salaries, I’ve highlighted six areas to be improved. The common theme is for employers to think more critically about the essential characteristics of the person they want to employ. They must distinguish this from those skills, knowledge and traits that can be cultivated through training, mentorship and good systems. This requires a developmental approach which is a strong point of third-sector organisations. I have also discussed the attractiveness of hybrid work and the need to be explicit about such arrangements.
There are also things that impressed me about how third-sector organisations recruit in the UK. Foremost are the detailed job packs that some companies prepare. These tend to be 10-page briefs which describe the organisation, its culture, the role and responsibilities of the position, and employee benefits. Some also include quotes from staff about working there and a video link where the Chair or CEO speaks about the organisation and the position. I’m also impressed by the employee benefits that charities and social enterprises offer.
The most successful organisations will be those who can attract, develop, engage and retain good people. These organisations will thrive regardless of the challenges of the marketplace. Therefore this is a good capability to cultivate.
References
Charity Jobs. (2024). Salary Report 2024. Available at: https://www.charityjob.co.uk/careeradvice/resource/charityjob-salary-report-2024/ (Accessed 24 May 2024).
National Council for Voluntary Organisations. (2023). UK Civil Society Almanac 2023: Data. Trends. Insight. Available at: https://www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/uk-civil-society-almanac-2023/ (Accessed 24 May 2024).
Pro Bono Economics, Nottingham Trent University National VCSE Data and Insights Observatory. (2023). Running Hot, Burning Out. Available at https://www.probonoeconomics.com/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=b172f27c-f0a9-492b-ac53-60a8cc9a373f (Accessed 23 May 2024).
Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. (2024). Scottish Third Sector Tracker: Waves One to Six. Available at: https://files.scvo.scot/2023/12/069P1000003fqvPIAQ-Third-Sector-Tracker-W1-6-Executive-Summary.pdf (Accessed: 23 May 2024).