- Time to fill jobs has increased from 6-7 weeks to 9-11 weeks
- 15% of our business is providing contractors (Facility Managers/GM Aged Care/CEO’s/Clinical Managers)
- Higher remuneration needed to be offered, versus what we entered the candidate market with on behalf of our clients, for 75% of all jobs we have filled
- We’ve recruited more CEO’s this year than ever before
- The majority of jobs we have filled have required the client to interview only one or two candidates before making an appointment
Ely Nejah joined our team mid-year as a Recruitment Specialist – 10 + years of recruitment experience, her mum works as a Registered Nurse in aged care, her sister is a Registered Nurse in NSW Health. Ely started at P.J. right when we went into a hard lockdown, so we didn’t get to see Ely for over two months physically in the same room. I know a lot of you will have onboarded employees remotely too during 2021. Ely brings such humility and a deep understanding of and desire to find the best fit for our candidates and clients. She is trustworthy and tenacious, often inventive in her approach. Ely’s quite a bit younger than Linda and I and we are loving the team diversity that brings. With brilliant one-liners, Ely is so funny, likeable, a hard hitter and not afraid of any job challenge.
Linda is in her sixth year working in the P.J. team. A pure, forthright, well-liked (by candidates and clients), deeply aged care knowledgeable, honest, funny, and gorgeous team member. Always going the extra mile, Linda’s keen to take on a challenging head-hunt assignment and persists until she secures great candidates for those hard-to-fill jobs. She works every day with zest and rigour. I admire her consistency, commitment, and loyalty to my business and personal and professional support she gives me every day. Linda is also known for her ability to be loud in the office, so with the new office fit-out she’s been allocated two noise cancelling screens attached to either end of her desk. No one else has this, so it’s very funny.
Due to COVID lockdowns and being tied up with the business and home life, I’ve switched up my ocean-swimming this year for other activities. It was kind of forced really, me not being able to swim, when we went into the 5km radius lockdown rule, in addition public pools were shut. I wasn’t able to travel to the beach – Warrawee to the beach is 17km. My husband told me to get in our pool, which was 12 degrees in Winter, no thanks! Not even with a wetsuit.
At one stage I was contemplating swimming in the Hawkesbury, down at Bobbin Head (Ku-ring-gai National Park, which is just under 5km from our house). My brother told me not to, he kayaks down there nearly every day and has seen bull sharks right up near the Marina, more than once. I do know people who did though, and they were doing 2km-4km swims! Braver than me.
I’ve taken up walking, lots of walking with my dog Archie. Like many others, bushwalking has become a love. Walking is my main game now really in addition to drinking way too much coffee! I’m planning a Whitsundays Ocean swim next year, where we stay on a tall ship and get to do various length swim distances over four days, so I shall start swim training (in the ocean too) in January. Can’t wait!
Our eldest daughter Ellie completed the HSC this year. What a year that was for her, incredible she got through. I have absolute and utter respect for the year 12’ers this year, I take my hat off to them and wish them all huge success.
I am so grateful that my business has thrived this year and am very aware that a heck of a lot of other small businesses in NSW and VIC in particular have not.
We have worked so hard through 2021 to the point of our own exhaustion and we are all looking forward to a break. Our office is closed from 24th Dec – 9th Jan. The coercion we do every day to ‘woo’ candidates for our clients requires flare. The influencing, analytical capacity to understand our client needs, networking, relationship building, scrutinising, balancing, courting of candidates, bringing people along right to the very end has become more complex than ever. I do believe our experience and knowledge of the aged care sector combined with deep understanding of the candidate and organisational psychology is what holds us in good stead.
Our relationships in the aged care sector are what keeps us going.
Thank you for being a part of our 2021 and we’re looking forward to what 2022 brings.