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Industry Insights, Other

There is no time to reset. Businesses need to evolve now.

 

By Angela Lee Loy, Chairman – Aegis Business Solutions, Eve Anderson Recruitment and Caribbean Resourcing Solutions

 

We can all agree that COVID-19 is going to be with us for a while and this is forcing us to change the way we do business. I don’t have a magic ball to see the future and how 2021 will evolve. But there are a few areas businesses can explore further for development and this is based on some key areas that emerged over the last year.

 

Are you reviewing your physical space?

Many companies are shrinking their offices spaces and testing the capabilities of their online networks. Although many parents are struggling to meet the demands of homeschooling their kids whilst managing work, the reality is, many of them may not have a reason to return to their physical office once things improve.

The Banking Sector is also reviewing their real estate space(s) and are restructuring based on their current and future needs. As they begin to restructure, some retail operations have already started exploring the process of moving inventory to increase sales transactions online. Foot traffic continues to decline therefore making rent and leases more difficult to sustain.

The landscape is changing at an unbelievable pace. The real estate business continues on decline as many of the traditional brick and mortar stores are now operating online or are in the process of transitioning to that model. This is happening globally. Our cities and downtown areas will evolve as we continue to move operations and customer experiences online in the Caribbean.

As a leader in any business, irrespective of the sector, it is important to invest the time now to move your operations online. It is extremely important to support your staff in getting the right tools, training and, developing the right attitudes for successful remote working.

 

Are you exploring new areas of service?

We have to pivot our business as the landscape changes. People need to re-examine and analyze which of their services cannot work during this pandemic and explore new areas for development.

One example is the hotel industry. Across the Caribbean, we are dependent on tourism. With a significant decline in air travel, our hotels and bed and breakfast businesses are suffering and a critical part of this is food and beverage revenue. Some restaurants have implemented ‘curbside pick-up’ and others have reduced their services in one area to make room for new services. This is to help generate the revenue and to also support the business through this challenging time. There are even those business owners and sole traders who have completely changed their entire business. I anticipate many people may take this route and completely start another business.

As a business owner, you must continue to look at your business differently now, without the emotional attachment of your original vision. Businesses have to evolve. Think about what services are needed at present and determine how you can meet those needs with the current resources you have.  Continuously ask yourself, ‘What else can I do?’ and do your research and adjust accordingly.

 

How often have you asked your employees, ‘How are you doing?’

We all have different personalities. Introverts may enjoy working from home at this time and avoiding their videos on Zoom meetings. Extroverts on the other hand, need social interaction. They may feel isolated at times and miss coming in the office environment to see their colleagues.

As we continue to navigate the challenges ahead in 2021, we have to book time in our diaries to check-in on those who work for us. Exploring ways to continuously keep our employees engaged in our business during this challenging period is important. As an owner, ask yourself, ‘How can I better understand the challenges my employees are experiencing so that we can work in solidarity with each other?’

 

Find new ways to support local

As foreign exchange continues to be more difficult to obtain, businesses should begin to explore how to produce things more locally and collaborate with local suppliers, innovators and research institutions. We cannot do it alone. But, we can do it together. This is the time to innovate, plan and prepare. This could well be a time when your businesses ‘leap frogs’ into the future.

Our manufacturing sector is extremely vibrant in Trinidad and Tobago and there are a lot of things that can be produced locally. This could be a period of innovation and adaptability for the manufacturing sector.

 

Invest in technology

If you are already investing in technology, that’s great. But it does not end there. As a business owner, I am constantly looking into new technologies with my IT Manager to ensure I have the competitive advantage. Technology is changing so rapidly. As we buy a new phone or software, there is already another version out on the market.  Delve into the details of your business to explore what efficiencies you can create through the use of technology so that you can focus on your staff to manage more meaningful work.

One of the areas I am fascinated by is – hydroponics in the agriculture sector. I firmly believe we need to continue to encourage people to grow our own food, buy local and support the new local products many people are developing. If you are not into technology and innovating  your services, you will be left behind.

Further your knowledge

The world is your oyster. You are no longer limited by geographic location to learn something new and with technology, you can have a wide array of products and services to market and sell.  Education is going to be key.  What education do you need to give your children now as we move forward? What skills do you need to learn as a business owner to move your business more online? We can look at every area across all industries and dissect it – how can I learn to do this better? What are the tech trends in my industry? There is so much to learn.

 

Be an authentic leader

People are struggling and things are getting more difficult. Whilst profitability is important, in 2021 it is not the most important thing as we work towards resetting. We have to think about the people working with us. If we don’t have people working, economies cannot move forward. Yes, businesses will take a massive hit and these businesses will dive into reserves for survival.

As difficult as it is, we have to look at maximizing your people. You can come together as an organization, communicate the situation and let them know what compromises can be done. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

You do not always know individual employees’ situation, so you need to have these honest conversations and be prepared to be vulnerable. Your employees will surprise you. The profitability will come. You cannot think short-term for long-term solutions but you need to work together.

If you are a leader and reading this – don’t lose sight of what is important. You have to understand this – ‘It is important to have business but the business you have is dependent on the people working for you.’ If you don’t treat your people right, you cannot expect them to give 100 percent? It is a partnership.

Shareholders with a dual role of director are in the position to determine their remuneration, as well as, they had many years to build their nest egg. Managers  and staff do not have that discretion. During these COVID times, shareholders/directors could survive on less.

 

There are going to be many things you can do differently in 2021 but there are some fundamentals that are emerging:

  • Isolation is real. Stay connected regularly.
  • Technology is the way forward. Educate yourself.
  • Retail space is on the decline. Build an online business.
  • Support local and seek opportunities.
  • Authentic leadership is key at this time.
  • Whilst profitability is important, it is not the main thing.

 

Angela Lee Loy is Chairman of leading business outsourcing firm, Aegis Business Solutions and the two longest standing recruitment agencies in the Caribbean, Eve Anderson Recruitment and Caribbean Resourcing Solutions. All three companies work together as a business hub for local and international companies operating in the Caribbean including Guyana. For more information, visit www.aegistt.com, www.eveandersonrecruitment.com, www.crsrecruitment.co.tt

View our story on page 19 and other stories here – https://amchamtt.com/Linkage-3/2020

 

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Posted by on March 1, 2021

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“Wait and See” Causes downturn in Recruiting

Susan’s Snippets

I’m happy that some of you recognised the Code of Ethics mentioned in our last newsletter as the 4-Way Test adopted by Rotary International. I highly recommend it as a useful guide when you are unsure of the right way to approach a situation.

CRS is proud to be celebrating 12 years of business. We recently had a “paint” staff party, whereby new staff members painted a picture to join our collection of masterpieces all painted by CRS staff members. This is the result. What do you think of our talent?

 

“Wait and See” Causes Downturn in Recruiting

If you read the local and international news on the economy, you may be feeling a bit alarmed about the future. Are we heading for a recession? Will escalating food and other prices make the cost of living untenable? What about the effects of global warming and climate change?

Over time I have noticed that the volume of recruitment business is directly proportional to the perceived strength of the economy, which is strongly affected by what is happening in the local (Trinidad & Tobago) oil industry. For instance, when oil prices dropped in the early 2000s then so did general confidence and that led to a sharp decrease in recruiting activities. Companies that are experiencing a downturn in business naturally put a stop to recruiting until business picks up again; then there is a frenzy of hiring to make up for the personnel shortages accumulated during the hiring freeze.

I have observed a more than 40% drop in new I.T. recruitment requirements from this time last year. This has been noticeable since December 2007. There is normally a spike in the amount of new business in January which just did not happen to any great extent this year.

Right now oil prices are at a record high and experts have been saying that the economy in Trinidad & Tobago is strong. So why the fear of making normal business decisions of expansion and renewal? A major factor may be that many of the large oil companies in Trinidad have been laying off staff. This reflects the slowing down of new gas and oil finds (yes, it ought to be said that way round) and the oil companies are quick to cut costs when their profits are in jeopardy.

Yet, it is clear that there is gas and oil here to last for many more years, plus the strong likelihood that more will be found. It looks like the stock markets are recovering and there is no prospect of a recession like we’ve experienced in the past. The lay offs are mostly confined to the oil industry. For everyone else, a “wait and see” approach to business could actually trigger a self-fulfilled prophecy by causing a downturn.

I say we should be confident in our business prospects and plan for increasing success. There are plenty of opportunities and plenty of money around and it is a good time for strategic career moves. That is why CRS is currently investing in new systems to cope with future recruitment growth and market expansion. Is your business ready to do the same?

 

Tell Us What You Think

We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those too.

Posted by on April 26, 2016
Other

Jobs in an Uncertain Economy

Susan’s Snippets

Congratulations to T&T’s Soca Warriors for winning the football (soccer) match against USA (first time this has ever been achieved) and hopefully on their way to getting into the second round of the Football World Cup qualifiers. We have eyes on South Africa in 2 years time for the team to repeat their extraordinary performance in Germany in 2006.

What else is there to say except that “we are living in interesting times”.

 

Jobs in an Uncertain Economy

If you are living in Trinidad, then you know that the question on everybody’s mind is whether or not we will be affected by the global roller coaster economy. Our economy is still strong but there’s a feeling that we must be affected somehow by the crisis in the USA, Europe and elsewhere. We are always affected by the price of oil and, more importantly, gas, and these prices have been dropping and rising in an unpredictable manner globally. Nevertheless, the world needs oil and gas and known reserves are depleting, so oil companies must continue to fund increasingly more expensive exploration and drilling in order to meet future demand.

Historically, Oil & Gas companies tend to lay off staff as soon as their profits dip, and this is one reason why many young people in North America and elsewhere do not choose to work in that industry. This has led to a shortage of skills world-wide, with the prospect that this situation is about to become much worse as a large percentage of skilled and experienced oil and gas professionals are due to retire soon. Therefore, I feel that our international energy sector companies are more likely to relocate skilled staff to other countries, if the local situation should warrant this. This could be a great opportunity for our local talent to gain international experience in this industry.

I.T. skills also appear to be in great demand, both locally and internationally. It seems that the dot.com crash earlier this decade caused many undergraduates in North America to avoid the computer industry as a career. Now there is a shortage of I.T. skills and in fact, according to the (U.S.) National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses, I.T. employment in the USA is on the rise, despite layoffs in other sectors. This makes sense – I.T. is integral in ensuring that a company is operating as efficiently as possible, and that product development can continue to keep the company competitive, when the economy is tight.

I have experienced this myself. Many years ago, I was a programmer at British Airways when the company decided to lay off 20,000 staff world-wide. All staff were invited to apply for voluntary redundancy with generous termination packages. About 80% of the computer staff applied (as we knew we could get jobs elsewhere) before they announced that the computer department was to be the only exception and so our applications were rejected. Unfortunately for the company, many staff had already got job offers and left anyway, me included. But this demonstrates how vital I.T. is to any organisation.

What’s the conclusion in terms of job prospects? I.T. and Energy sector professionals should continue to enjoy a high demand for their skills with consequent salary increases as companies compete for their talent. However, be prepared to seek opportunities abroad to capitalise on this demand.

 

Tell Us What You Think

We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those too.

Posted by on September 26, 2008
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CRS – The First 10 Years

Susan’s Snippets

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the long Easter weekend. I particularly loved watching hundreds of kites in the Savannah, some flying more successfully than others. Speaking of success, I’m very proud to announce that CRS is now 10 years old. To commemorate this achievement, I thought I would tell you what it was like in those difficult early days when I started this business selling a new concept in Trinidad & Tobago.

I wish to thank everyone who supported and encouraged me along the way and I especially wish to congratulate my staff, as without them, I would not be here today.

 

CRS – The First 10 Years

“Why don’t you stop talking about it and just do it!” These words were like a slap in my face. Sylvia was right – I had been talking for months about starting this business and never really progressed to make it happen.
Sure, I had done some market research which demonstrated an almost unanimous “yes” to the idea. I had a laptop with the latest Windows 95 and Office software, a printer and some accounting software. I had researched the idea in England and even went on a three day seminar there on recruitment strategies. So what else did I need to start?

I needed moral support. Working out of my home was not an option and I couldn’t imagine being all alone in an office making a go of it. I really wanted my sister, Karen Jackson, to work with me but she had a good job with a salary that I couldn’t match. These thoughts were going through my head when the phone rang. It was Karen saying she had decided to resign her job. Talk about fate!

We cracked open a bottle of wine and toasted to the success of the new company! It was a Friday in March 1996 and Karen agreed to work with me to fulfil my dream of match-making I.T. professionals and companies needing their services. I decided to name the company “Caribbean Resourcing Solutions” as it would operate throughout the Caribbean to provide the best resources for I.T. jobs and thereby solve the problems that I.T. employers have in finding suitable talent.

Why did I think I was qualified to establish the first technical recruiting company in Trinidad & Tobago (and probably the Caribbean)? Well, I was an I.T. person with a Computer Science degree and over 20 years I.T. experience at the time.
I had worked as a Consultant for the previous 9 years, the last 2 years as a free-lancer in Trinidad and the U.K. I knew what kind of quality service I wanted from an agency to find me my next contract job, and I wanted to offer this type of service to make a positive difference in people’s lives.

It’s amazing how things move to facilitate you once you’ve made the decision to do something. That weekend, Karen learnt of a small office for rent in Diego Martin. I went to see it on the Monday and I was in there a couple of days later. Karen didn’t join me as my Office Manager until mid-April as she was working out her notice.

Being an I.T. person, I had contacts to start establishing a Candidate Database, and I distributed brochures at every possible opportunity to attract more. Then I sent out a mail-shot to about 150 companies, following up with phone calls. I’m not a sales or marketing person so this was the hardest thing for me to do. That’s why I needed Karen there – to keep me going.

Not many people know this, but in the beginning, CRS only offered contract services, a new concept in the I.T. world in Trinidad at the time. I nearly starved! I had my first contract job in August with my brother’s company. It was for a 5 hour job and I made TT$400 after paying the contractor. My brother said I should frame the cheque!
We also launched the first version of the CRS website www.crsitjobs.com in August 1996 – the first job site in T&T.

When I realised that companies were asking for permanent staff, I wised up and catered for that as well. Interestingly, these days most of our revenue is from contract sales, but I was a little ahead of the times back then.

While I got quite a bit of interest from various companies there were also many disappointments. What I thought was going to be an easy money-earner turned out to be a lesson in surviving in a tough business world. I tried to make each mistake or disappointment a learning experience.

By November, I had several “sure” projects collapse all at the same time and I was thinking of quitting. That’s where Karen earned her keep. She persuaded me that I’d been very unlucky so far and I should give it at least 6 more months as I had already invested so much effort and money into this venture. Our first Christmas staff lunch was at an Indian restaurant and was funded by 2 vouchers for free lunch that Karen had acquired.

We also had our good times. When I got my first business enquiry in June 1996, I celebrated by inviting all the other tenants in the building to share in some wine and snacks. They couldn’t believe it wasn’t even a sale! Since then, we always celebrate first/big events with wine (bubbly these days).

We got our first permanent sale in January 1997 and then they started pouring in! It was like I had been humbled and been taught lessons so now success was coming my way. By July I was so swamped with work that I hired an HR person, Peter Gregoire, as a Recruitment Consultant. Pretty soon, we had to move to a much larger office in the same building and hire more staff. In December 1998, we moved to brand new and much larger premises in Woodbrook, and that is where we are still located.

We continued to learn lessons and adjust our business practices to suit. In 2003, we expanded our services to include technical recruiting (engineers, drillers, geologists, technicians, etc) in the Oil & Gas sector with its own website www.crsoilandgasjobs.com.
This was the next step in my dream to establish a quality recruiting service specialising in sourcing technical professionals of all kinds, not just I.T. This has naturally expanded to include the petrochemical and construction sectors as they employ similar skills.

While we don’t market our services regionally, we still get quite a few I.T. jobs for other Caribbean islands from referrals. Over the years we have placed Jamaicans in Jamaica, a Bahamian in the Bahamas, and Trinidadians in Barbados, St. Vincent and Mustique Island. We’ve had enquiries from islands as far apart as the Dutch Antilles, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic and Grenada. We’ve been approached by several North American agencies to supply talent to their market.

Our success has been a result of the efforts of our staff (currently Susan, Karen, Amelia, Stacey, Sonja and Keisha) who strive to ensure that our clients and candidates like the way we do business and deliver results, and therefore choose CRS to give them the service they need.

So where do we go from here? Let’s just say that CRS has eyes on the world! Watch this space.

 

Tell Us What You Think

Letters to the Editor:

I believe that the newsletters provided by the CRS are essential and much needed in fostering awareness for the potential of IT/IS, as only IT has the power and capability in modern society, to facilitate communication and collaboration among all individuals to aid the development of our country, the region and more importantly, the world. I would like to commend your work once again. Keep up the good work … Paul

Thank you for your kind words, Paul … Susan

We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those too.

Posted by on April 26, 2006
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We’re Back!

Issue 2.1
August 2004

We are back!

It has been many moons since the CRS Newsletter graced your screens. We were stonewalled by anti-spam software, including being blacklisted by our own server! It became very difficult to overcome all the barriers out there, despite the fact that ours was a legitimate opt-in newsletter.

So, I retreated and subscribed to a few how-to-run-your-own-internet-marketing-business type newsletters to find out how they managed to get their newsletters through to me. In the process, I learnt a lot, and our resurrected newsletter is in a completely new style and format. I hope you like it. If you wish, you may unsubscribe as indicated elsewhere in this newsletter.

We have now acquired state-of-the-art email marketing software to handle our newsletter more efficiently and to overcome the problems that we encountered previously. Do not worry, we will not spam you. If you are receiving this, then you had subscribed to us at some point.

 

Anti-Spam Legislation

If you are like me, you get tons of unwanted junk mail every day. There is a variety of software (many are marketed through spam, ironically) that can effectively manage this for you. I have been using Outlook 2003 and I’m very impressed at how this filters junk mail. I have not found a single valid email filtered out by mistake yet.

Did you know that there are now US laws regulating commercial mailings? Amongst other things, newsletters must have a working opt-out link in each email. Each unsubscribe request must be suppressed from future mailings and the address must be removed from the mailing list within 10 business days. So, in theory, you should be able to get rid off unwanted mailings by simply unsubscribing from them.

This is an excellent analysis of the legislation in PDF: http://www.customerparadigm.com/can-spam/can-spam-act.pdf

Getting caught breaking the law can result in a jail sentence in the USA. I wonder how that will stop the European junk mail! It is still best to avoid displaying your email address out there on a website or to enter it into any web based database. Difficult, I know, in this age of global communication.

I do promise that I will do my best to comply with these laws even though I am not governed by them as I live in Trinidad & Tobago.

 

Tell Us What You Think

We would love to hear what you think of this issue of CRS News. And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you would like to share with us, please send those, too!

Posted by on August 26, 2004