“I cannot believe it!”, was Oona’s first response when the West Coast Personnel floating trophy was handed to her at the function. “I had no idea that I was going to win the award!”

Roodt Griesel, MD of West Coast Personnel awarded the trophy to her. He said that Oona Thompson stood out for her excellent client service, steady performance and ability to listen to and act on client and candidate needs.

Oona is a recruitment specialist at West Coast Personnel. She recruits staff on behalf of manufacturing companies in the health and beauty sector, medical staff and construction companies, and specializes in laboratory and medical, managerial and office support staff.

The floating trophy holds a proud place in her office. Oona ensures that it stays bright and shiny.

Mrs Thompson was awarded the West Coast Personnel Recognition of Excellence award after the results of a poll and excellent feedback from client companies on consistently high service levels. This coincided with her 5^th year of service at West Coast Personnel.

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker’s children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning.

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them – with the permission of the givers – to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer’s wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children.

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentelman’s game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa’s greatest freedom fighters outside his home.

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is the Cape Town university psychologist who interviewed the ‘Prime Evil’ in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid.

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school everyday, even through their matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies.

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country those deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o’-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness.

* This article originally appeared in Mango’s inflight magazine.

Prof. (JD) Jonathan Jansen Vice-Chancellor and Rector

Prof. Jonathan Jansen was appointed as Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State on 1 July 2009.  He is an Honorary Professor of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, received an honorary doctorate in Education from the Cleveland State University, USA in 2010 and was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Science of the Developing World (TWAS) in the same year. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is a Fulbright Scholar to Stanford University (2007-2008), former Dean of Education at the University of Pretoria (2001-2007) and an Honorary Doctor of Education from the University of Edinburgh. He is a former high school Biology teacher, who completed his undergraduate education at the University of the Western Cape (B.Sc.), his teaching credentials at UNISA (HED, B.Ed.), and his postgraduate education in the USA (MS, Cornell; Ph.D., Stanford). His most recent books are Knowledge in the Blood (2009, Stanford University Press), while he has also co-authored Diversity High: Class, Color, Character and Culture in a South African High School (2008, University Press of America). In these and related works he examines how education leaders balance the dual imperatives of reparation and reconciliation in their leadership practice. Knowledge in the Blood received an outstanding book recognition award from the American Educational Research Association. His co-authored book Curriculum: Organizing knowledge for the classroom is in its second edition. Prof. Janses serves as Vice-President of the South African Academy of Science and from this vantage point leads three major studies on behalf of the academy, including an inquiry on the role of the South African Ph.D. in the global knowledge economy and another investigation into the future of the humanities in South Africa. He recently served on the boards of bodies such as the Centre for the Study of the Internationalization of Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia; the International Commission on the Child of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (Washington D.C., USA); and as member of the general assembly, International Association for the Advancement of Curriculum, among others. He has served as international consultant to UNESCO, the World Bank, the governments of Namibia and Zimbabwe, USAID, SIDA (Swedish), CIDA (Canadian), the European Union (EU), Germany, the Netherlands, DFID (UK) and the USA (through agencies such as the Academy for Educational Development in Washington D.C.). He has served as national consultant to SAQA, the CHE, HESA, the HSRC, SAMDI (now PALAMA), and the NRF. He has also worked closely with embassies of various countries represented in Pretoria, especially the Latin American representatives. He has chaired ministerial committees on further education and training (appointed by Minister Kader Asmal) and (currently) school evaluation and teacher appraisal (appointed by Minister Naledi Pandor). In addition, he has advised provincial governments on school change. Prof. Jansen has extensive experience in higher education as professor, head of department, dean, (acting) deputy vice-chancellor and, at the two South African universities he worked at, as senate representative on the council (UDW and UP). He has chaired committees at all levels of the university, and does extensive training for deans and for young scholars. He works closely with the business community on matters of education and training and is a non-executive director of ADvTech, a major provider of private education in South Africa.

Can the 500-year-old system survive

“All systems have lives. When their processes move too far from equilibrium, they fluctuate chaotically and bifurcate. Our existing system, what I call a capitalist world-economy, has been in existence for some 500 years and has for at least a century encompassed the entire globe. It has functioned remarkably well. But like all systems, it has moved steadily farther and farther from equilibrium. For some while now, it has moved too far from equilibrium, such that it is today in structural crisis.”

This statement  by Immanuel Wallerstein in an article published by Foreign Policy on the second day of 2011 sumerises the growing pessimism in many circles that capitalism as we got to know it, especially since the 1970s, can survive for much longer. It might have developed terminal structural defects, many commentators argue.

Some of Wallerstein’s arguments even imply that the democratic model as we know it and as it developed in tandem with modern capitalism might be part of the problem and therefore could come under pressures of its own.

His main arguments are:

• The basic costs of all production factors have risen remarkably — personnel expenses, cost of renewal of resources and infrastructure;
• Democratisation of the world has led to demands for more and more, from education to health care and guarantees of lifelong income leading to significant increases in taxation of all kinds;
• Combined, these costs have risen beyond the point where serious capital accumulation is possible; and
• Price increases have limits beyond which they cannot be pushed  because of the elasticity of demand.

The result is a growing profit squeeze, which is reaching a point where “the game is not worth the candle”, he writes.

It might be these structural pressures, some commentators argue, that led to the situation that, in turn,  led the chase for profit via complicated, high-risk financial products that in reality produced nothing of any practical value and were at the root of the financial crisis that started in late 2007.

The extraordinary expansion of the world economy in the post World War II years until 1970 has been followed by a long period of economic stagnation in which the basic source of profit has been rank speculation sustained by successive indebtednesses.

The financial system has been prostituted to the point where its core business, of being a facilitating service industry is totally overshadowed among others by the chase of profit via, often debt-financed speculation that does not add a single penny to real production.

To what extent production as the core value of capitalism has been displaced is well illustrated by the fact that according to Benjamin M. Friedman of Harvard University, from the 1950s through the 1980s profits earned by financial firms (excluding insurance and real estate) accounted for 10% of total United States profits. By the 1990s it grew to 22% and to 34% from 2001 to 2005.

“Fantastically high salaries and bonuses attracted more than a quarter of Harvard’s graduating job-seekers to investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, and the like,”  Bloomberg reported in November last year.

As was painfully illustrated by the financial crisis of 2007/08 and by the fact that the financial industry is full-steam back at its old game,governance of the sector has not kept up with developments in that sector or with the effect of globalisation on the financial industry.

And, as Bloomberg points out in its November article, “any effort to make finance safer, especially via new taxes, will be vociferously opposed by Wall Street and the banks, whose profits are amplified by leverage”.

Other threats

But the state of the financial sector is by far not the only threat to the modern capitalist system.

In another article on the same Foreign Policy-webpage referred to above, under the heading “Economies can’t just keep on growing,” Thomas Homer-Dixon writes: “Within this century, environmental and resource constraints will likely bring global economic growth to a halt.”

He argues that available resources already restrict economic activity in many sectors, though their impact usually goes unacknowledged and cites as an example rare-earth elements essential to the manufacture of many technologies. Meeting demand will require new mines at staggering environmental cost.

He also points out that for the petroleum industry the amount of energy received for each unit of energy invested in drilling has dropped from 100 to 1 in Texas in the 1930s to about 15 to I in the continental USA today. The oil sands of Alberta, Canada yield a return of only 4 to 1.

If the World Bank’s projected rates of global economic  growth hold steady, global output will have risen almost tenfold by 2100, which will imply tripling of carbon emissions. This, according to scientists, in terms of impact on the climate would cause such extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms that farmers would likely find they couldn’t produce the food needed for the world’s projected population of nine billion.

“Indeed, the economic damage caused by such climate change would probably, by itself, halt growth,” Homer-Dixon writes.

Socio-political implications

Much is written about the resentments building up in many societies against the ever-growing economic gap between the privileged few who benefit from the system as it is presently functioning and the majority in most countries.

The most dangerous factor, however, is ever-increasing food prices and the growing numbers of those who go hungry across the globe.

In an article in the UK Guardian newspaper Raj Patel last week reported that the UN has announced that its global food price index is now higher than it has ever been. Already this year, protestors have taken to the streets in India, Jordan and Algeria.

Illustrating how shocks to the system in one part of the world get transferred to other parts because of  the way the economic system has developed over the past 100 years. About food inflation, he writes: “It’s true that weather events have had an impact on global markets, but this is hardly the first La Nina. This historian Mike Davis, in his magisterial work Late Victorian Holocausts, looked at how the world responded to the cyclical El Nino/La Nina shocks throughout the 19th century.

“In the 1800s, the effects were survivable – but by the 1890s, in the so-called golden age of liberal capitalism, weather shocks were being transmitted directly to the poor through the newly established system of global commodity markets. And it’s these markets that have recently gone into overdrive.”

More than $200 billion has been poured into food markers since the financial crisis by speculators hunting profits, creating volatility. In the meantime  one billion people have gone hungry in 2009.

But if  you think that by governments clamping down on such practices the problem will be fixed, you would be mistaken. Without global consensus fixing the present problems of the economic system will be extremely difficult – and if you think that is a likely scenario, just ponder the following sentence from the Patel article: “The World Bank’s Robert Zoellick calls for freer markets, but researchers at ,er, the World Bank found that it’s government spending that helps most!”

In conclusion

In conclusion we take a paragraph out of Wallerstein’s article: “The only sure thing is that the present system cannot continue. The fundamental political struggle is over what kind of system will replace capitalism, not whether it should survive. The choice is between a new system that replicates some of the present system’s essential features of hierarchy and polarisation and one that is relatively democratic and egalitarian.”

Article taken from:

http://www.bluechipjournal.co.za/articles/other/475-capitalism-under-pressure

Those who are experiencing high amounts of stress in their lifestyle need to always be aware of the idea of burnout potentially looming in the future. While the term ‘burnout’ is often thrown around in discussions of stress, do you really know what it means, and how it’s caused?

Burnout isn’t a recognized clinical psychiatric or psychological disorder, there are some similar features between burnout and diagnosable conditions such as depression, anxiety disorders or mood disorders. However, burnout is much more common; for example, it’s estimated that 25%-60% of qualified professionals, between the ages of 32 – 55, experience burnout! It’s also less severe, more temporary in duration, and clearly caused by situational stressors rather than a biologically mandated chemical imbalance. (It’s kind of like depression’s non-clinical, less intense cousin that just comes for a visit and leaves when you reduce the stress in your life.)

Six Classic Symptoms of Burnout

1)    Depleted Physical Energy: Prolonged stress can be physically draining, causing you to feel tired much of the time, or no longer have the energy you once did. Getting out of bed to face another day of the same gets more difficult.

2)    Emotional Exhaustion: You feel impatient, moody, inexplicably sad, or just get frustrated more easily than you normally would. You feel like you can’t deal with life as easily than you once could.

3)    Lowered Immunity to Illness: People who are suffering from burnout usually get the message from their body that something needs to change, and that message comes in the form of increases susceptibility to colds, the flu, and other minor illnesses.

4)    Increased Absenteeism and Inefficiency at Work: When experiencing job burnout, it gets more difficult just to get out of bed and face more of what’s been overwhelming you in the first place. This may be an unconscious defense against burnout, but those experiencing it tend to be less effective overall and stay home from work more often. This is part of why it makes sense for workers to take some time off before they’re feeling burned-out, and why it makes sense for employers to refrain from running their workers into the ground; they might not get back up so quickly!

5)    Less Investment in Interpersonal Relationships: Withdrawing somewhat from interpersonal relationships is another possible sign of burnout. You may feel like you have less to give, or less interest in having fun, or just less patience with people. But for whatever reason, people experiencing burnout can usually see the effects in their relationships.

6)    Increasingly Pessimistic Outlook: When experiencing burnout, it’s harder to get excited about life, harder to expect the best, harder to let things roll off your back, and harder to ‘look on the bright side’ in general. Because optimism is a great buffer for stress, those suffering from burnout find it harder to pull out of their rut than they normally would.

Preventing burnout

If you recognize the warning signs of impending burnout in yourself, remember that it will only get worse if you leave it alone. But if you take steps to get your life back into balance, you can prevent burnout from becoming a full-blown breakdown.

Burnout prevention tips

• Start the day with a relaxing ritual. Rather jumping out of bed as soon as you wake up, spend at least fifteen minutes meditating, writing in your journal, doing gentle stretches, or reading something that inspires you.
• Adopt healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping habits. When you eat right, engage in regular physical activity, and get plenty of rest, you have the energy and resilience to deal with life’s hassles and demands.
• Set boundaries. Don’t overextend yourself. Learn how to say “no” to requests on your time. If you find this difficult, remind yourself that saying “no” allows you to say “yes” to the things that you truly want to do.
• Take a daily break from technology. Set a time each day when you completely disconnect. Put away your laptop, turn off your phone, and stop checking email.
• Nourish your creative side. Creativity is a powerful antidote to burnout. Try something new, start a fun project, or resume a favorite hobby. Choose activities that have nothing to do with work.
• Learn how to manage stress. When you’re on the road to burnout, you may feel helpless. But you have a lot more control over stress than you may think. Learning how to manage stress can help you regain your balance.

Assess Your Risk For Job Burnout with this easy “Job Burnout Quiz”!

Is your job putting you under excessive levels of stress? Our work lives take up much of our waking hours, and affect us greatly. This quiz is designed to analyze features of your job that may put you at a greater risk of burnout, and assess your emotional state and feelings about your job, to let you know more about your burnout risk. Assess your situation, and find resources for combating burnout.

Take The Quiz

Adapted from source:www.about.com

Gauteng may still be where most of the money and corporate action is, but for some  workers the Cape could offer better salaries.

According to the global pay comparison group PayScale, based on survey of almost 35 000 salaries Johannesburg (R234 651) and Sandton (R235 661) still have the highest median annual salaries in the country.

Lower down on the list are Witbank (R182 327), Pretoria (R179 932), Cape Town (R177 816) Durban (R166 361) and Port Elizabeth (R138 073). (Official government figures also show that Johannesburg’s per capita income of R58 705 a year – followed by Tshwane’s R49 912 – is the country’s highest.)

One recruiter’s survey, released this week, showed that employees on its books earn the most in Pretoria – 7% more than the national average salary, followed by Johannesburg (4% above the average).

Figures from JobCrystal show that Cape Town pay comes in at 5% below the average.

“However, it does appear that the so-called Cape Town tax – where candidates in Cape Town are paid less than those in Gauteng, ostensibly due to the better lifestyle – is showing signs of narrowing,” says JobCrystal MD Kevin Laithwaite.

Gauteng – which, according to the latest police statistics, still accounts for 50% of the crime in SA – is traditionally seen as a less desirable place to live.

Research by academics from Finland, New Zealand and the North West University on quality of life in South Africa found that if non-monetary measures are used – such as life expectancy, a better environment and higher literacy rates – Cape Town ranks first in South Africa.
It is followed by Ekurhuleni, Durban, Port Elizabeth and then Johannesburg and Tshwane. (When only measured in terms of “monetary” quality of life, Johannesburg tops the ranking.)

According to a recent study by First National Bank, the Western Cape has the best inward migration rate and the lowest outward migration in South Africa.

As more people wanted to live in the Cape, the subsequent demand for jobs is pushing down salaries.

However, Sandra Burmeister, CEO of recruitment group Landelahni Business Leaders, says earnings of executives and those with scarce skills (accountants, engineers and ICT professionals) are now on par in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

“This is simply because there are too few of these skills available in the market to be paying them any less in Cape Town.

“We have noticed, however, that in the case of black executives and scarce skills in financial services, the Cape Town rate of pay may well exceed the Johannesburg rate, just by virtue of the limited supply of specifically black candidates in the Cape and the desire to attract candidates for the role from other provinces.”

However, for more junior roles there is still a sizeable pay differential, Burmeister says.

“In secretarial, administrative, junior and even middle management, human resources and other support roles Cape Town is still paying less. I would think the differential is anything between 10% and 25%, depending on the role and the availability of skills. There are still more candidates available than jobs in these roles.”

There is one exception, though, Burmeister noticed.

Call centre agents are extremely well paid in Cape Town (mostly by international firms) – about 25% to 30% more than call centre agents in Johannesburg.

“We have an oversupply of entry level people and unemployed graduates with good communication skills in Johannesburg.”

Madge Gibson of Jack Hammer Executive Headhunters says the executive pay differential between Cape Town and Gauteng is all but wiped out.

”At an executive level it’s all about the role, the skill and the experience – whether we are recruiting from Johannesburg or Cape Town, the salary stays the same.”

The Western Cape economy has also sharpened up in recent years, attracting more companies and entrepreneurs.

According to Globalinsight data, the Western Cape economy showed average annual growth of 4.2% during the past decade, beating the Gauteng growth rate of 4.1%.

-Article from Fin24.com

West Coast Personnel specializes in placing qualified professional people with selected companies. Go to www.wcp.co.za to learn more.

Roodt Griesel and his dedicated team at West Coast Personnel has your best interest at heart, employers are assured of impeccable integrity and service.

West Coast Personnel makes Recruitment Cape Town a day at the beach…

Situated in Table View, Cape Town, West Coast Personnel services the entire Western Cape and has been doing so for the past 16 years. West Coast Personnel is a front runner in recruitment Cape Town.

The head office at number 254a Blaauwberg Road, Table View is a one stop destination for employers and job seekers alike.

With specialist recruiters in IT, Technical, Accounting, Project Management just to name a few, recruitment Cape Town has never looked better.

Their recruitment Cape Town comes with a guarantee…

West Coast personnel is a member of APSO and guarantees employers the placement, it’s because of this guarantee and their rigorous selection program that they have an above average success rate.

Roodt is a peoples person and his personal motto is “how can I help you”, he ‘s managed to put together a team of seasoned professionals with hands on real life experience.

They will be able to assist you in finding that special person to fill your gap and for job seekers they offer a comprehensive Curriculum Vitae service that will ensure your asset as a first class employee will be highlighted.

For top recruitment Cape Town you found your match.

Generation Y finance professionals seek aspirational and dynamic careers

New research by ACCA and human resource consultancy Mercer (published Aug 2010) has found that the young accountants of the 21st century have a confident and clear vision of their career progression, demand job security and are motivated by money.

Young accountants have a clear career vision…

The research – entitled Generation Y: Realising the Potential – shows a generation of finance professionals seeking aspirational and dynamic career paths, both inside and outside traditional mainstream finance careers.

It presents a wake-up call to employers of finance professionals to embrace the career aspirations of the youngest generation and offers dynamic career routes that capitalise on their finance skills, or risk losing future talent.

Over 3,200 individuals* responded to the research, from 122 countries around the world, making this one of the biggest ever studies of the youngest generation presently in the workforce. Leading global organisations were also interviewed to provide unique insights into managing this generation effectively, including RSM Tenon, Santander, UK Government Finance Profession, Pannell Kerr Forster, Hays, Aviva, KPMG, Unilever and the UK’s National Health Service.

While the survey reports that most Generation Y finance professionals suggest they are satisfied with their current role, concerns are expressed regarding the future, with half suggesting their organisation is not able to offer them sufficient career development opportunities.

‘Generation Y finance professionals are smart operators,’ said ACCA’s Jamie Lyon, co-author of the research. ‘Our survey suggests they are hard working, but they want quick and transparent rewards.

In the future, we know many businesses will need a blend of employees, some staying in traditional finance careers, and others taking their finance skills into broader areas outside mainstream finance roles.

Young accountants sees their position as a gateway to greater achievement

‘The good news is that this is what Generation Y wants too – they rightly see the accountancy qualification as a great step to a broader-based business career… but for the employer, providing more diverse career paths in the timescales demanded is a big challenge. Managing the career expectations of Generation Y and being transparent about career development will be key to delivering on the career promise. If employers get this wrong, there’s a significant retention risk, particularly if global economic conditions start improving.’

Chris Johnson, UK head of human capital at Mercer, added: ‘In an ever-changing competitive environment, the one constant seems to be the war for talent, and one of the most critical talent pools is Generation Y. Companies are aware that to be considered “an employer of choice” by the most recent generation they have to find new ways to attract and retain talent.

‘Generation Y employees around the globe are taking their careers into their own hands and focusing on their prospects for development to ensure their own career progression. This has implications for the way the finance profession builds its talent pipeline and how organisations should attract, develop and retain their young finance talent.

Other key findings from the research reveal the following:

• Money matters – remuneration is important to this age group and they seek out competitive packages. But they also want a good contractual package – they want money, work-life balance, and they want to work for an attractive brand that reflects their own values.
• Experiential learning is crucial – employers and Generation Y themselves see experiential learning as key to developing the skills required of today’s finance professional. Face-to-face learning still resonates with this generation and they are less reliant on e-learning than may have been previously thought. Organisations need to develop a wide range of learning opportunities to engage this generation successfully.
• Be attractive, be different – employers need to put career development at the heart of their proposition to make them attractive to Generation Y. Contrary to popular perception, the survey shows this is a generation who value job security but are prepared to leave if career promises are not fulfilled.

‘Our report shows, this is an über confident generation, who value security, but who are equally prepared to walk away if their career path is not being delivered,’ said Lyon.

‘They are a demanding generation to manage, but ACCA and Mercer believe that if employers can offer them interesting careers, and get the career proposition right, this generation can offer a wealth of untapped talent that is waiting to be unleashed.’

* ACCA members and students born in or after 1980, working in a finance or accountancy-related role for the past 12 months

Source: ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the global body for professional accountants recently made a presentation to APSO Western Cape. The article can be found at http://www.accaglobal.com/allnews/employers/2010/NEWSQ3/News/3354443

To find top accountants contact us here at West Coast Personnel.

The humorous account of gross miscommunication below is the precise reason why good recruiters make sure that they talk to the right people when taking on a recruitment assignment!

A recruiter will typically receive a written job description from the HR department on whom the company want to recruit. But is that job description up to date? What about the personalities that this person will be working with? And the dynamics of the team he or she will be entering?

What the job description prescribes is often a different animal from the individual that has to fill the position.

That is why we at West Coast Personnel take a Job Spec and a Person Spec. Our consultants will pay an on-site visit to ascertain themselves of the physical working conditions and find out whom this new employee will have significant job relationships with.

In meeting with the functional manager we often learn what is really required. The boring accountant described in the job ad is not the bright star required in real life. The job spec seeks an accountant that can do the recons for the next 20 years, but the real requirement is for an aspiring individual that can take over the department in 3 years and is a business growth specialist!

This is the real value of using a seasoned recruiter. They will guide you along the recruitment road to find the person you really need.

Author: Roodt Griesel is the owner of West Coast Personnel. In recruitment since 1996 West Coast Personnel has added significant value to business by recruiting the best human capital available on behalf of client companies.

That’s why we are doubling the effort by posting these photos of our billboard ads on our blog, hoping that you will see it and get the message that it is our soul purpose to find professional staff for good companies.

West Coast Personnel has two billboards up and running, and from far and wide people have been mailing and phoning, commenting on our billboards.

The West Coast Personnel Billboard with a mug shot of Anthony Kettle is situated on the intersection of Koeberg and Plattekloof Roads, Montague Gardens, Cape Town.

The second billboard is on Marine Drive in Paarden Island on the sport fields of Milnerton High School just before Woodbridge Island in a northerly direction.

During a marketing training day for our industry there was not one of the 70 recruiters whom had not taken note of our previous billboard, also in Marine Drive. We were very proud of the fact – almost all recognized the green puzzle piece with shadow.

We have been building the brand since 1996, and have learned from Coca-Cola that one can never stop advertising. So when you drive past one of these billboards you will be able to say – I know West Coast Personnel – they place professional staff – with a smile on your face☺

Roodt Griesel – Manager/Owner: West Coast Personnel

roodt@wcp.co.za

+2721 5562313

The question prospective employers of Project Managers ask themselves, is what sort of people make for successful teams and do we have enough of them in our organization.

The project environment generates stress in meeting specific goals often within severe constraints, plus the conflicting stresses of serving across organizational boundaries, to say nothing of a frequent overlay of multiple projects. Not everyone is comfortable in this atmosphere.

Using The MBTI Facilitates Smart Project Manager Recruiting!

The challenge facing the recruiter is to establish what characteristics are most relevant to a successful project management team and how these people compare to the population at large.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) matrix has identified four project leader profiles. The attributes of people that make up the rest of the project team are generally spread throughout the MBTI matrix.

The four project leader profiles can be characterized as follows:

• The Explorer: explorer or entrepreneur type project leaders have a vision of the future and projects are the stepping stones. They are bold, courageous and imaginative. There is a constant search for opportunities and improvements. They are comfortable in the lead and exude confidence and charisma. They are good at networking and selling. They may, however, have little time for day-to-day problems which are delegated to others. Their project power derives from past experience, enthusiasm and superior ability to communicate.
• The Driver: drivers are distinctly action-oriented and are both hard-working and hard driving. They are pragmatic, realistic, resourceful and resolute and their focus is on project mission and precise project goals. They are generally well-planned and self-disciplined, so for those who have similar traits, they are easy to work with. Conflict is likely with those who are not so inclined. Their power is derived from authority and they are quite prepared to use it.
• The Coordinator: coordinators are just as important when the project phase or situation calls for “facilitation”. They generally take a more independent and detached view of their surroundings. Coordinators are responsive to the views of project team members who must take responsibility for their own decisions. Therefore, their role is to ensure that team issues are surfaced, discussed and resolved to the team’s mutual satisfaction. These individuals tend to be humble, sensitive and willing to compromise. The coordinator’s power is derived from his or her ability to persuade others to compromise.
• The Administrator: administrators recognize the need for stability, typically in order to optimize productivity through maximizing repetition to the extent possible on a project and to get the work finished. Often, requisite information must be assembled and carefully analyzed, with thought given to the trade-offs and how conflicts and problems can be resolved and disposed of in advance. Work must be carefully scheduled and procedurized if potential gains are to be realized and “all the pieces are to be carefully put in place”. The Administrator’s power derives from intellectual logic and organizational achievement.

MBTI is a smart solution in Project Manager recruiting….

Characteristics required by all four leader types include being “credible, confident, committed, energetic, hard-working and self-starting.

Remarkably, few project leaders have ultimate project responsibility in practice. More likely they report to some higher authority such as the sponsor of the project.

The MBTI postulates that the four “temperaments” give rise to four separate but interrelated ranges of personal preferences or natural tendencies in a given situation, use smart Project Manager recruiting.

These ranges may be characterized as “information gathering”, “focus”, decision-making” and “orientation”. The combination of these four ranges results in sixteen possible “characteristic types”. To determine which types of people would be suited to some form of project work, we must understand each of the MBTI descriptions.

The typical project population is distributed as follows: the Explorer (entrepreneur) type makes up only about 1-2% of the population. 5-10% are of Driver (marshal) type. A similar number of Coordinator (catalyst) people are available for facilitative type duties. 25-30% are Administrator (stabilizer) “professional” types. Another 20-25% are probably more suited as “followers”.

That means that about a third of the population is most likely uncomfortable and unsuited to working on projects at all.

The ideal project team should start out with an “Explorer” type in the concept phase of a four-phase generic life cycle; proceed with a “Coordinator” in the “Definition” or planning phase; move to an assertive “Driver” type in the “Execution” phase; and conclude with an “Administrator” type in the clean-up “Finishing” phase.

Failure to match an appropriate style to project circumstances can quickly demoralize the project team and lead to unsatisfactory project results. Project Manager recruiting is tricky.

Using the MBTI, project leaders of various styles comprise 40-45% of the profiles: INTJ, ENTJ, ISTJ, ESTJ and the following profiles are comfortable being project leaders or followers: INTP, ENFJ, ESFJ and ENTP. The ESTP profile is comfortable being a project leader or unsuited to a project environment. Finally, the following profiles are unsuited to a project environment: INFP, ISFP, ESFP and ISTP.

Project Management placements at West Coast Personnel

At West Coast Personnel we apply smart Project Manager recruiting, applicants get tested in a variety of areas, including a full MBTI test to check for compatibility with a project environment and also taking into account in what phase of the project the client’s vacancy/position is in.

About the recruitment specialist

Sonje Kühnast specializes in project management placements. She has a Higher Certificate in Project Management, as well as years of experience working in project-type organizations. Contact her on (021) 556 2313 or e-mail her at sonje@wcp.co.za

Reference

This research is based on an article published as “Project Teamwork, Personality Profiles and the Population at Large: Do we have enough of the right kind of people?  by R. Max Wideman.

Contact Sonje today for smart Project Manager recruiting.