HR, Jobs and the Fashion Industry: Drapers

ended 26. April 2021

Drapers, the leading fashion trade publication, is looking for a few quick comments from HR experts to some, or all, of the Qs below.

Some are generic HR Qs, others a bit more specialist, so don't feel obliged to answer them all! Deadline is fairly tight!

  • Could the shift to remote working mean fashion brands will recruit from abroad more without the need to physically redeploy their new hires?
  • Equally, could candidates now work for brands in other countries, without needing to move?
  • What opportunities and challenges does this create? 
  • Is Brexit making it difficult for UK companies to attract talent both from Europe and around the world?
  • Will Brexit stymie the international jobs market? Does it make the UK a less appealing place to work and apply in? How can companies mitigate the effects of all this? 
  • How, overall, might COVID-19 impact the international jobs market for fashion and apparel?

2 responses from the Newspage community

Premium
Karen Watkins
Founder at Rowan Consulting
"In isolation, Brexit continues to affect the market and access to talent, whether that's in the fashion or any other sector. "But what the pandemic has shown is that remote and new ways of working are viable options for some industries, including fashion. "As with all these things, how fashion brands embrace and make the most out of new ways of working depends on the contractual agreements they have in place, not to mention their individual cultures more generally. "How companies choose to use the opportunity presented by the Covid-19 pandemic will ultimately win the war on talent."
Premium
Sarah Loates
Director at Loates HR Consultancy
"The post-pandemic proliferation of remote working means fashion brands may choose to expand the scope of their resourcing strategy, employing additional people outside of the UK, similar to the approach adopted by many UK banks who outsourced their call centre operations. "There are obvious advantages to this in terms of lower labour and overhead costs. That said, this goes against the tide of major organisations such as BT, Santander and Lloyds, who reversed their decisions to outsource operations. "Fashion has its own context and, for more ethically savvy customers, the outsourcing of operations may lead to accusations of a lack of Corporate Social Responsibility given the allegations of stress-related problems and poor working conditions in some offshore operations. "Ultimately for fashion it will boil down to ‘commercial versus conscience’ considerations, and fashion brands will walk a tight-rope to balance these."