Naturally, the outcome of Brexit will affect us all as individuals and the choices we make as we think about what it will mean for us and our families. Nobody knows the extent of the impacts and many of us will want to be as prepared as we can be for whatever happens. This is no different for businesses either. A whole host of changes could be forced upon them and a priority will be to ensure that the business is in the best possible state to ride whichever wave hits. Even as many business wait for an outcome, others have adopted new technologies but have not reviewed their practices, understood their pain points and adjusted their processes to truly improve how their business operates. Simplify Consulting engagements help remove the unnecessary and optimise a business and our clients have benefited from increased productivity, agility and technological integration as well as reduced risk and cost.

Businesses need to have a solid foundation with robust and efficient processes so they can provide value to their customers and to themselves. By collaborating with our clients we can support this and make sure they are fit for the future and ready to weather the changes ahead. This may involve re-prioritising existing projects to ensure that revenue streams are secure or help redesign processes, embed the improvements effectively and ensure they are operationally sound.

Many businesses operating in wealth management and the financial services industry will no doubt feel the knock-on effect of regulatory changes and implications down the line but what can be done now to get them ready? Business who can adapt quickly to these changes without incurring huge system overheads will be ahead of the game.

The impact will be far reaching and resourcing needs will also factor into a business’ decisions over the uncertainty with Brexit. Simplify Resourcing is one of the services we offer as either part of our consultancy model or accessed independently to help resource talented people.

Despite a positive position for the UK, seeing the lowest unemployment rates in the UK in decades (3.9% as of December 2018 – ONS). At Simplify Resourcing our focus has always been within Business Change and Transformation and although we are not new to this environment, Brexit has meant we have had to adapt our approach as our clients and candidates react to the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

We have seen some of our clients wait to understand the position the UK finds itself in before recruiting and others have asked us to charge in, full steam ahead to make sure their commitments are fulfilled. Recently there has been an uplift in the requests to find interim executives and short term contracts as our clients have looked to solve their resourcing requirements without tying themselves down longer term. On the other side we have seen hesitation from candidates who, especially in the permanent space, are less likely to commit to a change in career or employer.

Matt Short our Head of Talent & Resourcing says:

“It’s very challenging at the best of times to undertake accurate workforce planning but when you overlay uncertain economic stability it is even harder and little more than an educated guess. When facing into an unclear short & long term future it’s important to have the ability to be flexible and this is as true for recruitment as anything. Companies not knowing whether they will freeze recruitment, hire as normal or accelerate if it all turns out to be a damp squib may benefit from the use of 3rd party recruiters. Using this method enables companies to remain flexible without incurring the potentially unnecessary overheads of an in house recruitment team that may or may not have volume to handle in 2019.”

In summary whilst nobody knows what’s going to happen the likely winners are those who either guess right albeit that’s a risky strategy or better still those that have the ability to quickly adapt in an evolving landscape. Whichever way the UK goes with Brexit, businesses will always need to seek improvement if they want their business to stay ahead and there will always be a demand for talented practitioners and we will be here to facilitate that.

Jayne Brown is a Wealth Consultant at Simplify Consulting