In his role as new president of the international recruitment body CIETT (the International Confederation of Temporary Work Businesses), Ken Davidson makes it clear that he is very keen to be seen as being “on-message”. It’s easy to understand why, because his high-profile role will involve negotiations with politicians across the world on behalf of the recruitment industry. But as the interview progresses, I sense that Davidson feels frustration with politicians closer to home in Europe. He won’t name names, but gives the clear impression that certain factions in Europe exasperate him.

The softly spoken Aberdonian has a had a long and notable career at the global recruitment giant, Manpower. Unimposing he may be, but Davidson does not mince words and he has a clear message for detractors of the recruitment industry. He wishes some European officials would begin to accept the staffing industry in the same way as many other countries have.

At the Tokyo conference where he was appointed president, Davidson met with two senior Japanese ministers who welcomed the recruitment industry with open arms. Japan’s job-for-life culture has changed and it has realised that it must have a flexible labour market to stay competitive. “They are in the process of removing some of the restrictions on the industry that exist in Japan. I wished they could be beamed over to talk to members of the European Parliament and members of the European Commission. They are serious and they are a competitive force – I was very impressed indeed,” Davidson enthuses.

Career changes

Davidson’s career in recruitment has been distinguished. He has been involved with CIETT since 1989 through his work at Manpower, and has chaired a committee representing multinational companies within the organisation for the last seven years.

Davidson started work with the Inland Revenue in 1958 but left in 1964 to join IBM UK, where he held positions in sales and sales management. “I was an Aberdonian tax collector, so essentially I couldn’t live with myself,” he jokes.

Then in 1974, Davidson joined Manpower UK as regional manager for London and the south. He progressed through the company ranks to become HR director for Manpower UK, then director of UK operations and vice-president of operations support for Manpower Europe. Davidson is currently vice-president of corporate affairs for Manpower Inc, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa – so he clearly has vast experience of the international recruitment arena.

European frustrations

But it is the question of the recruitment industry’s future in Europe that seems to preoccupy Davidson. Convincing the governments of some of the highly regulated countries in southern Europe that employment agencies are a good thing has not been easy. His role at CIETT involves persuading nations like Italy to lift restrictions on private recruitment agencies, which until a few years ago were prohibited by law.

“Part of the work we carried out through the multinational group was to create a complaint to the European Commission because of a restraint in trade against some of the terms of the Commission,” he explains. “When things go backwards instead of forward – two steps forward and three steps back – I call it ‘business minuet’. We kept nearly getting our industry to function in Italy several times, then all of a sudden it all collapsed again because governments changed. Italy is a market where there have been demonstrations and even an official assassinated because the government is trying to make the labour market more flexible.”

Davidson refers to the assassination of Marco Biagi, economic adviser to Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, by left-wing terrorist group, the Red Brigades. But Davidson’s biggest headache when dealing with Italian officials and even businessmen was their inability to understand how recruitment agencies operated. “It took me right back to the period when I first joined Manpower. I had to spell out in detail what our business was about, how we operated and how we functioned – because the traditional response is: ‘Why would anybody want to work like that?’”

Davidson believes that the European government is missing a trick by opting to go down the path of increased regulation for recruitment agencies. If it is to become a truly world-beating economy to rival the United States, Europe’s labour market must become more fluid and less regulated. “The world is now made of economic blocks that are competing,” Davidson explains.

But Davidson contends that there are high-ranking, policy-making individuals who fail to understand the benefits of the recruitment industry and, worse still, are hell-bent on restricting private recruitment agencies. He won’t tell me on the record who it is in the European Commission that has raised his ire, but he says the Commission’s ignorance is spawned by a wider resentment of temporary work agencies among many establishments.

“Our employees are quite special, but because of prejudice that comes from institutions, often governments and trade unions, they can’t conceive that anybody would want to work so flexibly,” he complains.

Organising changes

As an influential figure in one of the recruitment industry’s biggest firms, Davidson has watched the sector mature and change. Since his early days at Manpower, recruitment companies have moved from offering basic temporary services to cover sick leave and holiday to full outsourcing services – developments made possible by new office technology. He is also a keen supporter of initiatives to involve private recruitment agencies in the public sector and believes CIETT must also change with the times.

“Our companies have become strategic partners with many large companies. We are sometimes doing on-site partnerships with our clients and that is a much more intensive service than before,” Davidson explains.

He believes that CIETT’s title, which implies links with only the temporary work side of recruitment, has become outdated. So Davidson will be consulting with the rest of the organisation to find a new name to better represent the membership. Another part of Davidson’s ambitious programme will be to modernise CIETT’s code of practice, with ethical guidelines for members to follow. “If I can do these things in the two years and eight months that are left, I will be happy because that will be a change,” he says.

Davidson also wants to encourage potential new member states to organise their recruitment industries into federations along the same lines as those in other countries, such as Britain’s Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

“CIETT is made up of affiliated national organisations and what we want to do is, in countries where there may be a group, however informal, but without a formal constitution, we will encourage them to create a constitution,” he explains. CIETT will provide advice for prospective recruitment organisations in former Soviet bloc nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Davidson believes this will increase CIETT’s influence on the European government and global trade bodies.

Davidson’s other objective is to encourage small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to become part of CIETT. The body has a reputation for representing the needs of the multinational companies – a perception Davidson wants to change. “There is often a thought that the multinationals are mostly concerned with the multinationals. In fact they are working to ensure there is a level playing field which permits active participation and development of SMEs,” he claims.

Davidson wants more CIETT officials to come from SME backgrounds and is looking to make sure the organisation’s policy reflects their views. CIETT’s previous president, Jean Claude Daoust, will head up a committee whose remit will be to encourage smaller firms to join the organisation.

Davidson’s commitment to changing the CIETT is laudable, but one thing is clear – with directives threatening to suffocate recruitment, the fate of the staffing industry in Europe may rest with Davidson’s ability to change opinions of the politicians.