Bill Ayers

President & CEO

Tel:  212.889.7788

bill.ayers@ayers.com
 
Throughout the past 27 years, The Ayers Group has partnered with its clients in bad times as well as good, helping them to deal with the mutability of the national and global economies. We have always done so with a glad heart and a creative mind, continuously adjusting our service-delivery models to reflect the business environment as well as specific situations and unique client needs.

As the current bout of economic uncertainty continues, bringing new waves of downsizing that have gone beyond trimming fat to cutting into bone, our Human Resources partners are voicing new levels of frustration. In our conversations with them, we hear:

• How can we continue to implement staff reductions and maintain workplace morale?
  
• How can we eliminate positions intelligently, respectfully, and humanely?  And how can we feel confident that our released employees are being taken care of in this challenging job market? 

In today's market, it takes an individual exponentially longer to find an equivalent job than it did two years ago. Some functions will return, but not in the same volume that industry, in general, and the financial services industry, in particular, have seen before. Some functions have truly atrophied. As a result, many candidates need to reinvent themselves—a process that can take even more time.

Our goal at The Ayers Group is to provide highly creative ways of making our HR partners' jobs easier and extending our support of candidates without increasing program cost to client companies. Following are some of our interventions:

• We have harnessed technology to provide online access to consultants, extend programs through "virtual program time," provide tools that support effective self-reliant job searches, and help clients follow candidate progress.
  
• The Ayers Group continues to have a highly flexible policy with regard to candidate programs—a powerful differentiator on which we pride ourselves. We offer to "freeze" a program in the case of a time out for family or health issues to maximize the candidate's program time with us.
  
• For participants in our various networking groups, we have extended attendance privileges beyond program-end dates so that job seekers can continue to stay in touch with peers for support and guidance during their ongoing search processes.
  
• We have instituted Program Wrap-Up Sessions for those whose programs are ending, reinforcing the search stratagems they have learned and creating yet another peer-support group to help them through the tough issues.
  
• At the conclusion of a program, we have always  extended the "hang your hat" privileges, so when former candidates are in the city for meetings, they can stop by, print out some resumés, and freshen up for the next meeting.

You'll find more detailed information about these and other initiatives throughout this issue of our newsletter.

On the service-delivery side, our career consultants participate in outside professional enrichment programs and in-house cross-training programs to keep them cutting-edge, sophisticated deliverers of service in a time when every edge is crucially important to the job seeker.

The Ayers Group is here for you, looking for ways to help you solve problems and take some of the burden off your shoulders.  As always, I welcome your calls, your inquiries, and your suggestions.