Navigating the sustainability hiring process. Quality delights but it comes at a price.
For a special occasion, I recently stayed 1 night at Gleneagles, im not ashamed to admit that this pen (and other small items provided as part of the experience) made their way back home with me.
Who doesn’t like a great pen & for free?
5 months on and the pen is still working beautifully, which delights as a more sustainable offering but which also made me think how much the extra cost of providing these pens was, given that most will be kept as mementos and be replaced daily. Quickly realising that the point of having a quality offering is the delight those additional things provide, far outweighing the additional cost over cheaper alternatives.
Whilst this pen is unremarkable in the context of the overall package, to quote Philip B Crosby:
“Quality is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organisation, not part of the fabric.”
For my part the overall experience at Gleneagles fits Philip’s quote and, finances allowing, I’d love to return.
In my world of recruitment for sustainability professionals I think we can replace the word “Quality” in the quote with “Sustainability” and it would read equally as well.
I can also apply this philosophy of quality to both our ability to retain customers and the process of salary negotiations.
It is clear that market forces have driven salaries up in sustainability due to the supply & demand imbalance but also to reflect what is an increasingly important role within organizational structures, what is noticeable is the frequency in which budgets are stretched for the seniority, level of responsibility and complexity of skill set.
Leaving many organisations in the predicament of needing to secure a high quality, high demand candidate but within financial constraints. Navigating this on behalf of our clients requires a true understanding of the candidate’s motivations as well as unearthing the role’s value proposition beyond the price tag it offers.
In fact matching on salary is base level when compared to the process of matching a role to an individual’s motivations and aspirations. Bringing those pieces (& others) of the jigsaw together to create a mutually agreeable and aligned position is our “free pen” and the basis on which we retain our customers.
