Should They Stay or Should They Go? The Post-COVID Stagnation Trap

Apr 14, 2026 | IT

“Should I stay or should I go now? If I go, there will be trouble… If I stay, it will be double.” The Clash may have been singing about a relationship, but in 2026, it’s the theme song for thousands of IT & Tech professionals.

The Narrative: Over the last few years, many long-term employees have felt “handcuffed” to their roles. Whether it’s the security of a legacy contract or the hybrid/remote setups that new employers are hesitant to match, there is a massive wave of “pent-up frustration.”

The Stagnation Factor: Many are desperate for change. They feel the “same shit, different day” syndrome—stagnation, few new projects, and no path forward. Some are even looking to move for similar or lower salaries just to feel a spark again.

The Employer’s Opportunity: When that resignation finally lands, don’t immediately reach for the counter-offer. Ask yourself:

• Is this a “Golden Opportunity”? You could replace them with a “New Broom”—someone motivated to prove themselves, modernize, and embrace AI and Automation.

• Are they too comfortable? Can you really reignite the flame in someone who is just holding onto the status quo?

The Result: Yes, I’m biased—I’m a recruiter. But replacing a stagnant manager with a fresh, motivated hire including our fee could save you thousands in lost productivity and reignite your internal culture.

5 Steps to Improving Managers’ Well-Being

Feb 1, 2026 | IT

We reported on a study that was undertaken by London’s Chartered Management Institute, that showed the impact that management and leadership has on an individual’s health and well-being. The impact that technology is having on Managers was a prominent theme throughout the results of the study. The study also demonstrated that long working hours are having a significant adverse effect on Managers’ health and well-being; and the implications of poor management strategy became prevalent. Here we recommend ways that you can improve the well-being of your Managers and help them to manage the pressures of the role more effectively.

Empower Staff and Encourage Productivity
The study found that the biggest factor that influences motivation a positive well-being is a manager’s ability to decide how they will get their jobs done and complete tasks and projects, with a staggering 74% of respondents stating that this is the most contributing factor to job satisfaction. Give your staff autonomy – structure job position to allow a degree of autonomy and allow your managers to set their own goals with good reason. Self-chosen goals create intrinsic motivation – the desire to achieve goals for their own sake. It creates a higher level of determination and persistence and will enhance engagement levels. Empower your staff through rewarding and recognition of their achievements and support personal and professional development.

Switch Off
Allow employees to switch off from work emails during non-working hours. Duties should be kept to working hours if you want to maximise the productivity levels of your staff. It is a clear indicator, with 61% of respondents claiming that technology makes it hard for them to switch off, that this is an issue that needs to be reviewed by employers. You may want to review your communication policy to reduce the likelihood of managers resisting to the temptation of accessing emails out of work. 39% believe that out-of-hours remote access to emails should be restricted by their employers – this may be a wise move in a bid to reduce stress, heighten productivity and increase job satisfaction.

Develop Better Line Managers
You need to develop line managers who have a capability to encourage and engage. Providing feedback to managers on what areas they perform well in and what areas could benefit from improvement will greatly enhance a manager’s quality of working life. Ensure that managers seek feedback on how their management styles are perceived by colleagues. Providing development opportunities to help managers to reflect on their own styles will enable them to develop and enhance their own management styles. Creating more opportunities to learn will always greatly benefit employees. Supporting this, 92% of Chartered Managers say that becoming chartered increased their self-awareness.

Improve Change Management
Managers’ assessment of how senior leaders are managing change is at a low point. A high number of managers are saying change initiatives are failing to deliver business benefits. With change becoming commonplace across most organisations, addressing this should be a priority. During a culture change, strong leadership is necessary, along with improved communication and a level of trust between leaders and managers. It is vital to measure and monitor the impact that change within the organisation is having on managers.

Make Well-being a Focus
With Managers’ time being taken over by long working hours and heavy workloads, time to focus on exercise and personal health is compromised. Implementing a wellness plan for all employees may be beneficial in order to contribute towards eliminating negativity and improving Managers’ health and well-being. Emphasise the impact of poor health and well-being to Managers, and the cost implications it can have to the business in order to get 100% buy in to your wellness plan. Improving well-being means tackling any stigmas that may be attached to the discussion of health. These may be issues regarding mental health, physical illness or stress. Providing information and encouraging discussion about these issues give your staff the confidence to seek if and when needed, help for their health.

Ann Francke, Chief Executive CMI commented on the results of the study:

“There is nothing wrong with hard graft, but only if you’re well supported. Accidental managers who lack the professional skills to deal with the causes of burnout are a threat to their health and others health at work. Productivity will also continue to suffer unless employer’s train their managers.”

If you are struggling to manage the health and well-being of your staff and need a HR professional to join your team, then please call us on 0207 788 6600 and one of our expert consultants will be on hand to help you find the right candidate.

Fix your Broken Team

Jan 28, 2026 | IT

How replacing your staff one at a time can rejuvenate your business

Are your results being hampered by lazy employees? Those employees that do just enough to get by and no more. If your business has good market share, potential and a good strategy but you are still getting poor results then it’s likely the cause is ‘coasting’ members of your team. Sometimes management can see this but often it takes someone else to point it out. But what can you do about these bottom-feeders who are holding your business back? How can you get quality personnel to fill their place? The answer is to rebuild your team employee by employee. Read on to find out how.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that unless you are in a position to close down business while you rebuild your team, this will be a gradual process and will not happen overnight.  However, it will be worth it.  Rather like repairing a plane in flight, you will be able to make changes that will improve your business without slowing down. Unproductive colleagues can cause problems right across your team, hampering motivation and productivity in even your most committed.  With this step-by-step guide you will be able to perform a complete redress of your staffing without interfering with your trading.

1. Identify your ‘Bottom-Feeders’
Review your staffing at least once a week.  Look at each team member and determine his or her appropriateness for the business. Use a spreadsheet to keep notes and strategies current so they can be continuously reviewed. Star any employees that are ‘on the bubble’ or are delivering questionable value.

Find out if the poor producers have potential. It’s incredibly common for management to want to replace without looking at an individual’s potential. Sometimes they are amazed when they see a minimal employee blossom. Do you know what their skills or interests are?  It could be that they are better suited to a different job within your organisation. It is usually better to give the minimal employee a chance or opportunity – if they do not want it they will often resign.

Deal with one employee at a time and you may find that existing under-performing team members become happier and more productive in their roles now that they are not being dragged down by others.

2.  Refresh your contractors continually
Remember the reasons you chose to hire contract workers.  Contract workers are a high value choice as they are often highly specialised and skilled, with a wide breadth of experience and bring a fresh perspective into your business.  However, after 12 weeks they are entitled to the same benefits as your permanent employees.  In addition to this, the freshness they originally brought to your organisation will begin to stale as they stagnate in an aging project.

Solve these problems by ensuring you are constantly assessing the type of contractors you need in your team and that they work no longer than 12 weeks with you, in order to ensure compliance with the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR).  Continuously assessing your contractors will allow you to constantly bring in a fresh stream of new talent with no hard feelings when the time comes to ‘part company’.  Here at Langley James we can find you the very best contractor talent to help your business grow.

3.  Who to hire next
When you have looked at your team and identified where replacements need to be made it is vital to source the best possible people to rejuvenate your company.  View employees as resources and profit centres – not just expenses. Minimal employees are usually cheaper but deliver much less value.

The key to building a successful team is to make sure each new hire is an improvement on what you have already.  At Langley James we can assist you to find IT professionals who fit all your exacting criteria. Look at work ethic, values, maturity, drive and creativity… truly amazing things happen when you replace a ‘bad apple’ with a quality member of staff.  Look for ‘breakthrough’ employees that can bring high value quickly. This is usually a factor of skill, experience and work ethic. This can bring a corresponding sharp spike in performance.

Make sure you are hiring to meet the demands of your business.  Constantly monitor the market and what needs to be delivered to your customers.  Think about this on a daily basis and it will become second nature.
4.  How to keep your team performing
Create a culture of delivering.  Annual reviews are not enough!  Measure and evaluate your workforce on a weekly basis.  This is not putting your staff under undue scrutiny if done properly and it is well worth the time and effort.  Make sure each member of staff has specific criteria to measure themselves against, specific to their job description.  Self-evaluation is as important (if not more so) than the evaluation you deliver.  After all, it is the employee’s job to be accountable, not management’s.  It is management’s responsibility to do something about the lack of accountability if it is not there. This makes it much easier to deal with those tough decisions if the time comes.

Whilst, those ‘bottom-feeding’ employees may do everything they can to avoid the attention those who want to do well will welcome the direction and opportunity to improve.  Your star employees will relish these meetings as a way of furthering their career and celebrating their achievements.

Have a career and training plan for each employee.  These weekly meeting are a fantastic way of keeping on track with these and ensuring they are still relevant.  Be approachable: when your staff and contractors are at ease with these weekly communications you will find they start to bring issues to your attention rather than you spending time and effort investigating who isn’t performing.

Make sure that in addition to weekly evaluations you perform formal reviews at least twice a year, preferably quarterly.  Think of the weekly meetings as a GPS system, ensuring that your staff are heading in the right direction and making good progress whilst avoiding obstacles, but the formal reviews are for taking stock of where the team member has arrived.  How much progress has been made?  Where are they heading next?

Make sure every member of your team understands other people’s roles.  Lack of understanding of what others bring to a company can cause friction and resentment.  In addition to this, create a culture where colleagues can train, support and mentor each other.  This can go a long way towards raising standards.

Make sure you include your contractors in your weekly evaluations: 12 weeks is an absolute maximum for keeping a contractor on and if your business needs require a different skill-set to that which your existing contractors can provide then it is only fair for both you and your contractor to have a change and get the best out of your staffing.

5:  Be persistent
The key to maintaining a high performing team is consistency.  Continual evaluation of what your team members deliver will keep their motivation high and you informed.  You will become aware of any weaknesses in your team so you are able to hire to fill a skills-gap rapidly.

Always be in recruitment mode: as you know, things can change rapidly in business.  With persistence you can be in a position to immediately know exactly the sort of person you need to hire in order to react to these changes. When it comes to contract workers you are in a position to assess their value on a daily basis should you choose in order to get the maximum value from these precious resources.  Of course, if you need help or advice we at Langley James are happy to use our wealth of experience to help you find the perfect IT employee.

Has your business been affected by poor employee performance?  We’d love to hear about your experiences or any advice you have to give other managers and business owners.  Tweet us @ITRecruitment or visit us on Facebook

Technology Leadership – What you really need to know

Jan 27, 2026 | IT

Technology Leadership – What you really need to know

 Taken from a recent survey conducted, the following stats highlighted some very interesting trends relating to employees within the IT/Technology sector…

• 33% of IT professionals have moved jobs during the last 12 months
• 25% of your team will change jobs in the next 12 months
• 33% of your team are actively looking for a new role
• 80% will answer the phone and listen to what a recruitment consultant has to say
• 72% of IT professionals believe that they need to leave in order to progress their careers
• 32% of people who had a pay rise last year believe that there is still opportunity to progress with their current employer
• 22% of IT professionals have felt let down by their employer in the last week
• 47% of IT professionals work 5 hours more than their contractual hours with 22% working 10 hours or more above their contractual hours per week.

 The Good News

• Keeping your staff happy is not all about money
• The 3 most effective methods of retaining your team are –
  • Giving them interesting and challenging projects to work on
  • Making sure they are surrounded by good people
  • Ensuring there is open, honest and regular internal communication
  • Innovation is the most important factor in retaining your team.  Allowing your team time to innovate will make them want to stay.
  • 80% of IT professionals who are not allowed time for innovation believe that they need to move on in order to progress their career

Source: computerweekly.com

Despite best intentions to give what you can, it is almost inevitable that at least 2 members of your current IT team will move on within the next 3 months and that’s when the fun really begins!  Finding the time to read through CV’s and conduct interviews can be a tough call on top of your already busy workload.

As the news reports unemployment levels dropping, the old age topic of skills shortages raises its ugly head yet again – only this time it’s worse.  For many years, we have dealt with this within the IT sector but due to the recent recession, other industries were also beginning to feel the pain.  This situation was mainly due to very few graduate/trainee roles being created in the last 5 years.  A lost generation?

And now, at least you have the green light to recruit, so you need someone to hit the ground running, a few years’ experience, someone to bridge the gap between entry level and ‘experienced’, not quite a manager, someone who can be molded into your way, but someone who doesn’t need to have their hand held every minute of the day.

With the competition really heating up, strong candidates in the £30-70k bracket are getting 3-5 interviews within a week and most are receiving multiple offers within a fortnight.

So, the burning question is “how do I get them?”

Money is still a motivation, but it’s worth noting that most will not move for money alone.

Speed is important – many great candidates are lost between CV to interview.  However, speed is not the only answer as candidates are waiting for the right opportunity.

The one most common thing missing of late is Attractivity.  To get the right people, you really need to shout about what’s in it for them.  You may have been through a tough patch with redundancies, pay-cuts and working harder than you’ve ever worked before or even been scared for your own job security, but think back to what attracted you to the role.  So many hiring managers are still making the common mistake of thinking that people are just grateful for a job as this is definitely no longer the case in over 80% of the IT market.

Consider future projects that are in the pipeline.  Candidates really want to know – whatever they are.

What about new technologies?  So many of your competitors never tell of new technologies and something as simple as this can give you the competitive advantage.

Where did you start in your current organisation?  Where have others moved to within the organisation?  What are the opportunities for career progression?  Share some success stories.

And last, but by no means least, training.  Even if it’s on the job training or mentoring it is worth noting.

Here at Langley James, we are passionate about recruiting – that’s why we do it!  We love getting to know you and getting to know our candidates resulting in the right person for the right role; something we have done over 3,000 times in the last 15 years.  We are experts at attracting the best calibre of candidate for your role, not just skills wise, but that all important personality too.