Stop the world, I want to ‘log off’

I have said on many occasions that I dislike technology and email with a passion but my word, I have to log-off for the sake of my sanity.

Needing a bit of silence and solitude is essential for creativity. Whilst attempting to write this blog about our successful temp desk, I made the foolish mistake of sitting in our busy office, inevitably being distracted by different topics of discussion.

I have always found working open plan a challenge and prefer to shut myself away in order to be truly productive. However, running a bustling recruitment business in the West End there is little time for space and silence – you have to create it. The noise may not be coming from my colleagues it may be originating from the dozens of screaming emails which pile up in my inbox.

With email there is the perception that you have to be constantly available. Temp recruitment can become more about who is hovering over and reacting to their emails the quickest, rather than providing solutions which are well thought through.

What happened to picking up the telephone and having human contact – or seeing people face to face? I have given up counting how many LinkedIn requests I receive from random people all over the world who have a desire to connect with me. Surely if it was that important someone would pick up the telephone?

There is the flip side to this of course – when you have an urgent/immediate start temp job where the client is relying on you to source a great temp and speed is very much of the essence. You need to contact a lot of people instantly in order to find ‘the one’. Everyone else is on email as much as we are so they fortunately respond instantaneously. Can’t have it both ways I guess but my latest New Years’ resolution (in July) is to only check emails twice a day. Not sure how long that will last but it’s worth giving it a go…

Kirsty Miall
Director