SMEs in critical place tackling talent shortages post-pandemic

The unwelcomed arrival of COVID-19 has left the UK, and specifically London, in major economic and cultural shock. Now, with all legal lockdown restrictions eased and businesses optimistic about the future, job vacancies are skyrocketing. Data from the Institute for Employment Studies estimated that there are currently over one million jobs available in the UK with many SMEs struggling to now fill vacant positions.

For the first time since 1988, London’s population is in decline – with data from Future Strategy Club revealing that more than 2-million Londoners have left the city over the lockdown period. Further to this, London has also seen 700,000 non-UK born workers vacating the city and now, the number of permanent jobs available in England rose at its fastest rate since 1997 June as the economy reopened. Yet the availability of workers hit a 24-year low.

With this in mind, many businesses today are now questioning – how can we get access to these experts over the next period of growth? An enormous poll of this ‘non-indexed talent’ – highly skilled, c-suite workers who are not on recruiters radars – are falling off the corporate ladder and becoming ever harder to access.

To combat this issue Future Strategy Club connects the power of networking, partnerships and little black books, collecting this into an agency structure that is accessible. Collating the very talent that a recruiter cannot find, from Gareth Tennant, the former Head of Intelligence at the Royal Marines, Hector Arthur, former Digital Director of The Times or Karl Weaver and former CEO of the Data Practice at Publicis, FSC make previously inaccessible talent open for business.

Justin Small, CEO of FSC – a network of the UK’s tier 1 creative, strategic and forward-thinking talent – discusses why the hunt for the UK’s top talent is now over:

“Non-indexed talent refers to talent that aren’t on recruiters radars or don’t have an obvious job title – those such as Gareth Tennant, the former Head of Intelligence at the Royal Marines to Hector Arthur, former Digital Director of The Times who are partners at FSC. FSC is organised around its Partners, former corporate C-level executives and senior consultants and founders with huge experience in initiating and leading change.

In today’s business world, organisations need a robust stream of outside-in thinking, plus the capacity to execute the change that’s required to stay competitive. As such, businesses can source creative freelancers to enrich a team and drive fresh results – using their outside-in expertise to thrive. From helping businesses recalibrate and survive the effects of the Covid pandemic to re-designing leadership models and cultivating a culture of innovation and autonomy -these experts are unphased by the acute challenges in how we are doing business today and can be accessed through FSC.”