Yes, yes, a strange headline, but it will all make sense in the end. In this week’s lighthearted look at the world of HR, Adam McCulloch hears news of a remarkable new recruitment strategy and looks into research revealing how much we all waste time by doing things that don’t involve working.
There are few genuinely original ideas knocking around in 2024. But even those imbued with the sense that everything under the sun has been tried before may sit up and take notice of a new approach to recruiting people.
An, as yet unnamed, hygiene and health company has decided to ditch job boards and online listings and use toilet paper as its preferred medium for attracting the talented.
The toilet paper, freshly printed with the job advert, was then placed in the cubicles at Nottingham University. One dreads to think what kind of research may have taken place before this location was chosen, but apparently it was because “Students love something fun and different, so the ad spoke directly to the people they wanted to reach,” says Guy Thornton, founder of Practice Aptitude Tests.
Thornton adds: “The beauty of this campaign didn’t stop in the stalls. Students quickly took pictures and shared them online, causing a chain reaction of awareness.”
At Personnel Today we quickly decided we had no interest in seeing the pictures.
Make some tea, get extra holiday!
As Christmas approaches it can be surprising how some companies fall into the Scrooge trap, in this case by breathlessly revealing their study on how us humanoids “waste time” by not working.
Haypp Group have conducted research uncovering just how much extra holiday employees are gaining while at work. The biggest time wasters were:
- TikTok scrollers gained 3 weeks, 3 days of “holiday”
- Tea makers – 8 days
- Smokers – 6 days
- Talking about the weather – 5 days
- Latecomers – 3 days
Markus Lindblad, from Scandinavian-based company Haypp, said: “We conducted this research to find out who the biggest time wasters were in the workplace, and it’s been shocking to see how much additional holiday time some people get.”
The Personnel Today office at this point collectively queried the word “shocking” (as well as questioning the science behind the findings). Is it shocking that people, for example, talk about the weather? Where’s Markus been all this time?!
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Some of us took umbrage at his next remark: “And, in true British fashion, the second biggest time wasters were the tea makers, who gain an additional eight days of holiday each year.” Someone immediately pointed out, between slurps, that making tea for lots of other people actually saved time.
Markus continues: “It’s also been interesting to see that a large proportion of UK smokers are still gaining some extra time away from work to enjoy a cigarette, with some wasting 20 minutes or more every day. A great smoke-free alternative that can be enjoyed from the comfort of people’s desk or place of work is a nicotine pouch.”
Haypp, in case you were wondering, is a supplier of nicotine pouches and vapes. Sigh. Well, it’s a creative approach to sales.
Given his concern about people wasting time, Markus would surely find the advent of “toilet cubicle recruitment” to be admirable. It’s Christmas, Markus, wipe away your fears.
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