Unscrambling the Egg of Brexit

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Abandoned Factory, by Dimi - Copy (2)
Abandoned Factory.  Courtesy of Dimi.

In the past year it has becoming abundantly clear that workforce trends are entwined with immigration, trade, and politics.  In the bold new world of globalization and technological change, older employees without degrees have been struggling with dis-employment and government neglect.  As voters, those same people have told us what they really think of the last two decades of leadership.  Employers are now stuck in a circular loop of unanticipated consequences.

The Brexit vote is causing labor shortages in Britain, according to this un-nerving and fascinating article from the Guardian.  After BRritain voted to EXIT (i.e. BREXIT) the European Union on June 23, 2016 some troubles have emerged.

As might be expected, foreigners working in Britain are nervous about being spoken down to and they are simply moving home.  Meanwhile those from European Union member states have somewhat stopped seeking jobs in Britain.  It is one thing for people born in Britain to vote that they don’t want foreigners taking their jobs.  It is quite another thing when the foreigners vote with their feet.

A recruitment drive to bring in nurses from Portugal saw half of nurses withdraw their applications right after the vote.  One large construction firm saw 4,000 staff not return to work after the recent Christmas break.  And the food services industry says it can’t recruit foreign chefs.

Some employers are hiring buses and renting housing to make transit and housing easier for their immigrant workforce.  But Britain already has a housing shortage, and turning things around could be difficult because 8% of the construction workforce is from abroad.  At least one major rail link project is dependent on foreign workers.  Individual employers are attempting to make housing and transit easier, but on the larger scale housing and transit could become worse.  It’s a vicious circle.

However, the main problem is the impact of the British currency.  In the year and a half prior to the Brexit vote the British pound had a value of about 1.3 to 1.4 Pounds per Euro.  The pound is now hovering at five-year lows, about 1.1 to 1.2 Pounds per Euro.  Immigrants send a lot of money back to their home country.  If the money they send home is worth 20% less, it defeats the purpose of working in the UK in the first place.

To top it all off, immigrants have a shorter commute if they simply choose to work in Germany.  People in Greece and Eastern Europe can get to Germany in a couple of hours and the trip is cheaper.

It’s a cautionary tale with many lessons.  Yes, other people should be more welcoming of people from all cultures, and be grateful for their contribution to the economy.  But what about us, as employers and business analysts and human resource leaders?  Have we been paying attention to who has been at the receiving-end of our reorganizations?  When we choose the very best candidate for a job, do we even talk to those we dropped from the first cut?  We weren’t thinking about these people a year ago.  But they have our attention now, don’t they?

Sorry About Your Jobs (Pass the Chardonnay)

Posted on by Stuart Murray
cheers-by-jan-smith-copy
Cheers! by Jan Smith.

Last year, I was curious about the emerging opinions coming out of the Brexit vote in the UK and the election of Trump in the US.  I was intrigued because these votes reflected a visceral rejection of the status-quo.  In the background of the racism and the sexism were some sophisticated critiques about what is happening to jobs in remote areas, and who has done well by comparison.  I felt obliged to dig deeper and learn more.

I have produced two tables based on a simple download from the Statistics Canada website.  The data provides the total number of people employed across Canada, broken into forty broad categories described by National Occupational Classification codes or NOC codes.  NOC codes are helpful because they give you a general and simple explanation of the job.  I pulled 10 years of data for all employees age 15+ for both sexes.  I simplified this data to show the 10-year growth by number of jobs, the percentage growth, and the rank, with #1 being the fastest-growing career area and #40 being the fastest-declining.

Top-10 Occupations for Job Growth in Canada, 2007-2016

National Occupational Classification (NOC) New Jobs, 2007-2016 % Growth Rank
Professionals in law and social, community and government svcs      129,200 44% 1
Paraprofessionals in legal, social, community and education services      116,700 44% 2
Professional occupations in health (except nursing)        47,200 43% 3
Professional occupations in business and finance      166,700 40% 4
Admin and financial supervisors and administrative occupations      255,200 38% 5
Assisting occupations in support of health services        86,400 36% 6
Professional occupations in nursing        79,400 30% 7
Technical occupations in health        66,800 27% 8
Retail sales supervisors and specialized sales occupations        94,700 26% 9
Professional occupations in natural and applied sciences      126,800 23% 10
Total   1,169,100 34%  n.a.

The top five areas for job growth are professionals and supervisors in a variety of fields such as health, finance, or law.  These professions saw a 38-44% increase over the decade (about 4% growth per year).  This kind of growth implies the running of modern society demands more skill, decisions require professional specialization, and we need more educated how-to leadership overall.Classifications in rank 6-8 were themselves in the health sector.  In this second batch, an entire sector has benefited from growth.  Health care is an expensive and in-demand part of our economy, and there are raging battles about whether we should spend a lot more or slightly more.  What is notable is that it includes the professionals, the technicians, and also the assisting occupations.  That is, the doctors, nurses, X-ray technologists, and those who change beds and deliver food.  All along for the ride for this 27-36% increase in employment over ten years, or 3% per year.

For the top-ten NOC codes employment has increased from 3.4 million to 4.6 million, a subtotal of 1.2 million new jobs.  This is 34% growth overall, largely in the professions or in a single sector, health care.  These 1.2 million new jobs mean that a very large number of people entered good-job fields for the very first time.  These individuals might perceive that there are plenty of new opportunities ahead of them.  If they are new university graduates and/or millennials, they are probably also more likely to be women, ethnically diverse, sexually diverse, and possibly born abroad.  These are the winners in the modern labour market.

By contrast, the bottom-ten NOC codes are disproportionately in the non-degree-educated jobs in areas that move their hands or break a sweat to get work done.  These are jobs in manufacturing, utilities, natural resources, distribution, and working the land.  There are several office support and management positions rounding-out the bottom.  However, we know that those white-collar job losses are more than offset by job growth amongst those with professional credentials, shown in the top-ten list above.  Largely, the worst-off jobs are blue collar.

Ten Worst Occupations for Job Loss in Canada, 2007-2016

National Occupational Classification (NOC) Job Losses, 2007-2016 % Growth Rank
Service reps and other customer and personal services -48,800 -6% 31
Workers in natural resources, agriculture and related production -8,400 -8% 32
Distribution, tracking and scheduling co-ordination occupations -36,200 -11% 33
Harvesting, landscaping and natural resources labourers -10,100 -11% 34
Assemblers in manufacturing -32,300 -16% 35
Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities -35,500 -19% 36
Processing and manufacturing machine operators -91,100 -23% 37
Office support occupations -226,600 -26% 38
Middle management in retail and wholesale -87,700 -28% 39
Senior management occupations -24,500 -35% 40
Total -601,200 -18%  n.a.

In the bottom-ten NOC codes, total employment declined from 3.4 million to 2.8 million, or about 600,000 jobs lost.  This is an 18% decline or 1.8% fewer jobs each year.

While it is common to talk about whether the economy and jobs are improving “on average,” we can miss a more interesting picture in the details.  On the whole, the total number of jobs increased from 14.2 to 15.3 million, which is 1.1 million new jobs or an 8.0% increase.  So yes, employment has been growing “on average.”  However, average means that some did extremely well and others did not.

There is an under-spoken story of those who have slipped, who have lost in some way.  These are not people who have replaced their accord with a civic.  These are people who have had to move in with their parents or children, apply for social assistance, and listen to politicians give sunny speeches about a brighter future.

Looking back, it only makes sense that someone angry and unreasonable will speak for them, and that it won’t be pretty.  Their critique rests on some truth, regardless of their choice of words.

First Do Your Homework, Then You Can Play Ball

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Shane Battier. Courtesy of Keith Allison.
Shane Battier. Courtesy of Keith Allison.

What impact does analytics have on teamwork?  Plenty, it turns out.

I happened upon an interesting blog post by Thomas Marsden of Saberr, a team-development firm.  Marsden was fascinated by a session with Shane Battier at the Wharton People Analytics Conference.  Battier is a basketball player with many distinctions.

One distinction is that Battier won a team-player award because he served as his team’s data translator.  Players on his basketball team were handed massive statistics packs about the opposing team’s behavior.  He actually read them, a behavior that was rare.  I often wonder what happens when I produce a ream of analysis and send it off to a client.  Sometimes (but not always) someone comes back to me with tough questions, follow-up inquiries, and demands for deeper dives.  In those cases I have struck upon an expert consumer.  They are like wine experts, indie rock snobs, or film buffs.  They don’t produce the product; they just really know how to consume it.

Battier is an expert consumer.  He did his homework and made interpretations in order to play better.  Other players had not done this, so he would help teammates and “drip feed information at the right moment through the game.”  He was acting as the intermediary between the statistical analysts and the front-line players.  This is a key bridging link between two cliques.  In network theory the person who causes information to jump from one crowd to the next becomes a go-to person for both cliques.

For some people, they see the shots being made.  For me, one of the greatest games on earth is watching the information pass from one person to the next.  There is a bounce, a spin, a clever move, a change of play.  I watch big people, breaking a sweat, moving my data across the court.  And when they score, it’s fist-pumps and high-fives.  Good game.

What You Figure Out Before Your Boss Tells You

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Dominoes, by Jacqui Brown, cropped
Dominoes, by Jacqui Brown.  Cropped.

There is an emerging opinion that things get done in an organization more through social networks and less through the chain of command.  The best place to start on this topic is the great Wikipedia article which sets you up with the basics.  In brief, you are only partially a person who does the work in your job description under the orders of your manager.

An alternate way of thinking about this is that you pass along opportunities, ideas, and opinions through the web of people you know.  These are the people you meet around the office, at the coffee station, at lunch, or in the lead-up to meetings.  It’s not just your friends, but your friends-of-friends and beyond.  This environment – the social network – is a force to be reckoned with and can be more powerful than the chain of command.  Having a diverse network, keeping tabs on old friends, and talking with people who unsettle your complacent views are the things you need to stay in the game.

One of the areas where social networks are most powerful is in the transmission of new information.  If you can keep a good rapport with people who can feed you data, this is a good idea regardless of whether it is in your job description.  And those who create the information need that larger network of data consumers to give their new findings some reach.  We need each other.

You’re Smarter Than You Were an Hour Ago

Posted on by Stuart Murray
Rear-view mirror of Zion Mountains, by daveynin
Rear-view mirror of Zion Mountains, by daveynin.

One of the greatest adventures in uncovering new information is the clash between our new ways of thinking and the opinions we had moments prior.  Our brains play tricks on us, through cognitive fallacies, when dealing with disruptive evidence.

One such fallacy is called “hindsight bias,” a kind of knew-it-all-along effect.  I have given complex and novel findings to clients who quickly proclaim that the information is basic and obvious in some way.  Sometimes it is basic and obvious, but quite often they had opposite views minutes earlier.  Learning and research can be thankless because it is so common for smart people to quickly absorb new information.  They don’t recall being ignorant.  If they do remember being ignorant, they’re not tempted to draw attention to it.

Those who neglect to pursue new knowledge and feed their curiosity become less savvy over time.  The times change, people change, and evidence shifts.  People who figured out the ways of the world many years ago start to lose their grip.  They have dubious clothing, haircuts, and social views.  They overlook emerging evidence.

Real smarts are not really about having a vault of information; it is the act of striving to explore.  I watch new data make its way through the organization, with little or no attribution to me or the original source.  Things quickly become known.  The culture becomes smarter.  It is quietly satisfying.

Good Information, Not for Snacking

Posted on by Stuart Murray

The Pringles Effect is when someone asks for one piece of workforce data.  Then they come back and ask for two more things.  Then they ask for four.  Before too long, they are taking advantage of every opportunity for more information.  It is largely identical to the behavior when you have one Pringles chip, and before long your hand is stuck in the canister.  In general the phenomenon is “information addiction” which feeds the reward centre of your brain with dopamine.  Unlike other addictions, information addiction does not appear to have a major downside, aside from hours lost, and resources spent on research which has no outcome (this time).  On average, curiosity and the desire to advance society’s knowledge is laudable.  But the superficial behavior, particularly in the early stages, resembles compulsive snacking.