The green shoots here are an image of what we hope to find each time we cull responses from project managers about their profession and its growth opportunities.
NOTE: This article is reprinted from the July 2009 edition of Project Management Tipoffs. Subscribe to PM tipoffs by clicking here.
Arras People, the Project Management Recruitment specialists recently polled PPM (Programme and Project Management) visitors to our web site to gauge the economic temperature. We were keen to check out with PPM professionals at the halfway stage of 2009; how they saw the economy in terms of their employers’ position and also their own personal position. We were looking for “green shoots”, the much talked about indicator that things are on the up!
The first question we asked visitors was Compared to Jan09, my employer’s business is;
Based on our own experience the response to this question was not surprising, with 56% of UK based respondents reporting that they were either still in a downturn or significantly worse than six months ago. 34% of respondents reported no significant change, whilst 2.4% reported that times were booming to confirm that there are always winners in any economic cycle. Green shoots, yes 7.5% of UK respondents reported that they can see some, the next key question will be do they have roots?
Interestingly when the data includes non-UK based respondents the overall picture is a little more positive. Is this reality, it’s hard to tell, although it may also be a reflection of the psyche of the UK workforce?
Asked about the stability of their employer's business at the present time, 41% of UK respondents said they were 'Still in a Downturn'.
When we then cut the UK data across employees and contractors we again found a significant difference in the response which aligns with the data collected for the Arras People 2009 Project Management Benchmark Report.
It would appear that the contractor population sees the position as a lot more gloomy with 75% reporting that they were either still in a downturn or significantly worse than six months ago. The contractor group reported a comparable percentage (6%) seeing green shoots with none reporting that times are booming. In contrast 44% of employees who responded were seeing no significant change, with 44% reporting that they were either still in a downturn or significantly worse than six months ago.
In this graph, employee respondents seem somewhat confident about the stability of their employer's business than contractors, who showed a generally negative outlook.
We then asked visitors Compared to Jan09, my personal confidence is;
As can be seen in the graph below the UK respondents were once again slightly more negative than the overall group. However, in line with the data collected for the Arras People 2009 Project Management Benchmark Report, personal confidence does not directly correlate with how people perceive their employers business state to be.
44% of our UK respondents report that their personal confidence compared to January is lower or significantly worse, which is a major change from the results analysed in the previous survey. Less than 25% of the respondents reported that they were in a neutral state whilst 5% reported that confidence is booming. Interestingly 29% of UK respondents reported that their personal confidence is improving which is 22% higher than those seeing green shoots!
Personal confidence amongst our respondents is clearly improving in the project manager.As we saw in the Arras People 2009 Project Management Benchmark Report, personal confidence when compared by employee and contractor shows a significant deviation this is again true with the latest set of data that we have collected.The contractors seem to have a strong lack of personal confidence in project management job stability, while employees freely admit to an improved confidence in the situation.
As anticipated in the Arras People 2009 Project Management Benchmark Report, personal confidence amongst contractors is significantly lower than that of their peers who are employees. 19% of contractors reported that their personal confidence is significantly worse with another 44% saying it was lower than in January, compared to 16% in both categories for employees. 24% of employees reported no significant change against 19% of contractors. In the positive sphere no contractors reported themselves as feeling buoyant against 8% of employees, with 36% of employees feeling that their confidence is improving against 19% of contractors.
Summary
Based upon the responses received and our current levels of business we believe that there are some new opportunities in the UK economy, though we are not sure if we would classify this as being the all important “green shoots”.
The levels of response in the negative spheres, especially those from the contractors suggest that we are still in a difficult position and this may continue for some time to come.
Our own experiences suggest that point hiring to fill specific targeted roles or replace/ cover existing roles is currently in the ascendancy over clients who are looking to create new roles in anticipation of future growth.
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Hi Paul, thank you very much for commenting. As you’ve requested, here is the link to Tipoffs for July 2009 – http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/Newsletter/2009/July09/2009_jul07_projectmanagementnewsletter.html. The article is the first one after the introduction at the top.
Best Regards.
is there a link to the post