Charities have been urged to improve their processes for recruiting people from outside the sector.
At an event in London yesterday, Matt Adams of agency TPP Recruitment said that “people from outside the sector are always in touch with us to try and get into the sector, so there’s a steady stream of [people who] want to do it, and I think the charity sector is pretty good at not hiring them on the whole.”
Speaking on a panel at the Association of Charitable Organisations’ annual conference, he said that while this was not intentional, charities are “quite risk averse”, and said that “nine times out of 10”, individuals with sector experience are favoured over those without any.
Adams said that this example highlighted “fundamentally where the charity sector misses an opportunity to hire people from outside the sector, because […] there is still a good stream of people that are looking to do it”.
He advised that charities review role profiles and reduce non-essential criteria, emphasising the importance of “taking that step to pause and then really reflecting on and taking the time to recruit to the right job description”.
Improving retention
Fellow panellist Susie Dawes, head of people and culture at Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association, told the audience of the need for more charities to improve staff retention by supporting “purpose-driven” individuals’ connections to their charity’s cause throughout their employment.
Dawes said this included “making sure that they have real clarity around how they’re making a difference every day, how they’re contributing to the strategy or to the wider organisation”.
“I think as a charity sector […] we feel that we’re up against private sector in terms of pay and benefits and things like that,” she said.
“In a sense we are, but in a sense we’re not, because we’re attracting people that want to make a difference in an organisation that's about purpose, that's about mission.”
Four in five frontline charity staff report work-related strain
A new report into the challenges faced by frontline charity staff was also launched at the conference, and revealed that four in five frontline charity staff have reported work-related strain, while burnout, anxiety and sleeplessness were found to be widespread.
The ACO-commissioned Insights from the Frontline report found that more than four in five respondents (83%) said they experience challenging interactions with distressed individuals at least occasionally, with 38% encountering them weekly and 13% every day.
The emotional toll of the work was also widespread with 84% of respondents reporting at least one work-related wellbeing symptom, with trouble sleeping (45%), burnout or emotional exhaustion (43%), physical health issues (42%) and anxiety (38%) being the most common.
Meanwhile, there was found to be a significant gap between the scale of need and the uptake of formal support, with almost three quarters (74%) of respondents not accessing any organisational wellbeing or mental health support in the previous 12 months, and 11% either reporting that they did not know what support was available or believed none existed.
