Recruiter - May 2015

May 2015

www.recruiter.co.uk

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR RECRUITMENT AND RESOURCING PROFESSIONALS

Playing the insider game

Internal mobility y is a winning g card for corporate recruiters

SEARCH AND ACQUIRE

INSURANCE ISSUES

Adidas ups its recruiting game worldwide with a new talent acquisition structure and strategy

INCORPORATING 01_Recruit_MAY15_CoverNEW.indd 1

When temps cause damage to a client’s business, should recruiters pay?

DECISIONS, DECISIONS How recruiters can use data-based decision making to improve all areas of their business

Recruitment Matters 15/04/2015 11:15

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Exciting? Absolutely! While the faint-hearted might pale at Adidas’ bravado at stating its intentions to go after and win the best, there’s something to be said for being so confidently upfront about its mission. A boost to the talent acquisition drive there is likely to have come in the form of chief HR officer Karen Parkin, who has a commercial professional background, and equates investment in talent with serious return on investment. We look forward to following Adidas’ adventures in recruitment.

Another adventure in recruitment is occurring closer to home at the hands of the Recruitment Directors Lunch Club, aka the Pirates, who take their nickname from Steve Jobs’ appellation for Apple (the Pirates of Silicon Valley) at its launch. Again, with an admittedly brash approach, the Pirates claim to operate the most exclusive membership club in recruitment for peer-to-peer learning. Read more on p8.

And when it comes to investing in talent, we want to hear how you are doing just that with your entries for our 2015 Investing in Talent Awards. Don’t miss the deadline on 22 May!

NEWS 5

FEATURES

Adidas sprints ahead in race for global talent The famous sports brand is on the hunt for global recruiting talent

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BAE Systems moves recruiting arm to museum BAE Systems relocates its recruiting team to a museum

7

33

26

Getty

If proof is needed of talent’s importance to global brands, see our lead story on p5 about how Adidas is taking no prisoners — but needs a new corps of global recruiters — in its bid for world domination in sports shoes, clothing and accessories.

Ian Whadcock

Contents

Firm responds to antimilitary bias Recruit for Spouses aims to tackle discrimination

8 Recruiter shortlist event 10 Tech & tools: Data-based

26 COVER STORY Internal mobility: finding talent on your own doorstep 33 Your temps, your fault Recruiters need to ensure their insurance is appropriate and watertight to protect them against possible damage by temps and contractors

REGULARS 19 Interaction

Soapbox: Keith Robinson, Resource Central 19 Ricky Martin 21 Soundbites 41 Movers & Shakers 19

decision making helps recruiters thrive

ANALYSIS 12 Sector Analysis Legal 17 Global Spotlight on Chile 24 Insight Are recruiters fully aware of the latest HMRC reporting requirements?

Industry moves 42 Bloggers with Bite:

Jon Hull

WHO’S HIRING? 39 Quality Premier Services 40 Chase R2R

DeeDee Doke, Editor

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

5

EDITORIAL Editor: DeeDee Doke T: +44 (0)20 7880 7601 deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk Reporters: Sarah Marquet T: +44 (0)20 7880 7606 sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk; Graham Simons T: +44 (0)20 7880 7603 graham.simons@recruiter.co.uk Contributing writers: Colin Cottell, Sue Weekes Production editor: Vanessa Townsend T: +44 (0)20 7880 7602 vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk Art editor: Adrian Taylor ADVERTISING Business development manager: Tom Culley T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607 tom.culley@recruiter.co.uk Senior sales executive: Lisa-Jane Parker +44 (0)20 7880 7610 lisa-jane.parker@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment advertising: Giorgio Romano T+44 (0)20 7880 7556 giorgio.romano@redactive.co.uk Fax +44 (0)20 7880 7553 PRODUCTION Production executive: Rachel Young T+44 (0)20 7880 6209 rachel.young@redactive.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishing director: Aaron Nicholls T: +44 (0)20 7880 8547 aaron.nicholls@redactive.co.uk RECRUITER AWARDS Events: Rebecca West T: +44 (0)20 7880 6236 rebecca.west@redactive.co.uk CIRCULATION and SUBSCRIPTIONS To receive a regular copy of Recruiter, the leading magazine for recruitment and resourcing professionals, telephone +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email recruiter@abacusemedia.com • Recruiter is also available to people who do not meet our terms of control: Annual subscription rate for 12 issues: £29.99 UK £35 Europe and Rest of the World • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Ryan Hadden T: +44 (0)20 7880 7618 ryan.hadden@redactive.co.uk

Total average net circulation between 1 July 2013 & 30 June 2014 – 18,994. Recruiter is also sent to all REC members

Redactive Media Group 17-18 Britton Street London EC1M 5TP

CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions are invited, but when not accepted will be returned only if accompanied by a fully stamped and addressed envelope. Articles should be emailed. No responsibility can be taken for drawings, photographs or literary contributions during delivery, transmission or in the editor’s hands. © 2015 Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. This publication (and any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet) or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Redactive Media Group. Redactive Media Group accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. The publishers cannot accept liability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication of any advertisement for any reason whatsoever. ISSN 1475-7478

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RECRUITER

MAY 2015

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16/04/2015 15:33

60%

OF CEOS

LISTED INNOVATION AS THEIR COMPANY’S PRIMARY FOCUS.

YET, 93% USE THE SAME SOCIAL NETWORK FOR HIRING.

1

LACK OF

47%OF THE

TECHNICAL SKILLS

IS THE #1 REASON EMPLOYERS HAVE TROUBLE FILLING JOBS. MEANING THE NERDS HAVE EVEN MORE POWER THAN WE THOUGHT.

2

WORKFORCE

PLANS TO LOOK FOR A

NEW JOB

THIS YEAR.

WHICH, BY HUMAN

NATURE, MAKES THE

OTHER 53% INTRODUCING

MORE ATTRACTIVE TO YOUR BUSINESS.

3

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1. PWC Global CEO Pulse Survey, 2013; 2. ManPower Talent Shortage Survey, 2013; 3. Investors in People, Dec 2013 - http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/press

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News

ADIDAS SPRINTS AHEAD IN DRIVE FOR TOP GLOBAL TALENT Sports shoes, clothing and accessories manufacturer Adidas is ratcheting up the global talent sweepstakes by embarking on a worldwide recruitment drive for top recruiters.

The drive is part of an overhaul of Adidas’ talent acquisition (TA) operation that has resulted in the creation of global, or executive, search and ‘futures’ functions designed to put the company in first place when it comes to bringing onboard top talent.

“We’re in an extremely competitive landscape where we have to go out and find really sharp talent, and to do that, we need people to go out and find them and more proactively identify people all over the world,” Steve Bonomo, vice president-global talent acquisition, told Recruiter in an exclusive interview from Adidas’ global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

Bonomo would not specify how many recruiters Adidas was seeking to hire. However, he described the numbers as “significant” and noted that they sought to hire an international corps of recruiters whom they would relocate around the world. “We will really take a global approach on this one,” he said.

He went on to say that recruiters would be needed to support “all of our business functions”.

“It’s about knowing where your ‘bench’ is, and being able to tap into that where you need it,” Bonomo added. “When great talent becomes available, and we don’t necessarily have a job, will that hold us back from hiring them? Not necessarily.”

‘Impossible is nothing’ to get the best

L-r: Tom Hovington, Steve Fogarty, Tauna Dean, Steve Bonomo

Led by Tauna Dean, the global search team has several different functions — proactively identifying and building relationships with key talent around the world and developing competitive intelligence (see box above).

The futures team, led by Steve Fogarty, will focus on building a digital and social landscape to engage potential candidates and convert them into hires. It will also drive initiatives to create infrastructure to recruit globally and identify new tools for recruiters to work with.

Adidas’ drive to lead the pack has already led to the defection to the company last year of three top designers from Nike, the company’s biggest competitor. Nike in turn filed a $10m (£6.7m) lawsuit against the designers, claiming that they had breached their employment contracts and leaked trade secrets. In March, the designers counter-sued Nike, asserting that Nike’s accusations were “meritless”.

When asked to comment about the lawsuits for this article, Adidas responded: “This is an example that shows we are actively seeking the top talents from our industry, and this example is a strong strategic hire as it allows us to open our creative studio in Brooklyn.”

Adidas’ Steve Bonomo credited the acquisition of the three designers to the executive search team and said it set the course for “wins like this in the future”.

TA teams are also being built in EMEA, Latin America, North America and Asia.

Tom Hovington is the Germany-based EMEA director, overseeing three major markets within the region — Western Europe, CIS headquartered in Moscow and emerging markets headquartered in Dubai.

“This is about getting our teams up and running as quick as we can,” Hovington told Recruiter.

DEEDEE DOKE

deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk

RETHINK’S CONSORT ACQUISITION COULD BE ‘GAME CHANGER’ FOR RPO The fixed-price recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) model offered by Rethink Group acquisition Consort Group could prove to be “a game changer” in the market, Rethink chief executive Steve Wright has predicted.

Speaking to Recruiter after the deal was announced last week (14 April), Wright said Rethink was looking forward to “a synergistic strategic fit” between itself and its new acquisition, which in addition to RPO also provides talent management services.

The hoped-for synergy would include positioning Consort’s RPO service offering within Rethink’s existing client base, while potentially taking its own IT contract managed service provider (MSP) offering to existing Consort clients.

“What Consort brings is an interesting alternative FOR MORE NEWS AND approach on RPO because COMMENTS GO ONLINE it’s a fixed-price model, not a transactional-based RECRUITER.CO.UK approach,” Wright said.

“We think that is going to WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

05_Recruit_News_MAY15.indd Sec3:5

be a bit of a game changer. It’s very attractive from a client perspective to engage with a strategic partner when you know up front what your cost is going to be.”

Consort employees that are not in on-site roles with clients will move into Rethink’s London office. Wright said that Consort will retain its existing brand name “for the foreseeable future”. However, he added: “Obviously, from a Rethink Group perspective, we are going to take this opportunity to Steve Wright think about future branding positioning of our talent management offerings.”

BGF, or British Growth Fund, facilitated the purchase with a £2.5m investment. BGF was established in 2011 to help Britain’s small and medium-sized enterprises and is backed by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered. It invests for a minority equity stake and a board seat.

Osborne Clark provided legal support on the sale.

DEEDEE DOKE

deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk RECRUITER

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News Contract News Anderson Group: Signed a long-term agreement with Recruiter for commercial products across the title’s portfolio…

Chad Harrison International: Executive search firm partnered with Tokyo-based Japanese recruiter FocusCore Group…

Challis & Company: The Australian firm joined the Amrop global executive search partnership…

IS Recruitment: Merged with Saxus Solutions with the latter becoming a division of the former…

LinkedIn: Bought Canadian recruitment software provider Careerify and online learning company lynda.com…

Matchtech Group: Won a six-year contract to supply staff for water and wastewater services provider Southern Water.

Also finalised takeover of Networkers International…

Outsource UK: Acquired engineering recruiter PA Recruit…

Remploy: The provider of employment services for people with disabilities won a two-year contract to deliver part of the government’s new Specialist Employability Support programme…

Rethink Group: Acquired talent management and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) services provider Consort Group…

Spencer Ogden: Partnered with training centre provider Utilities Academy to find it 2,000 trainee engineers...

Templine Employment Agency: Acquired multisector recruiter Corinium Employment…

WilsonHCG: The RPO firm acquired Canada-based RPO and search firm Head2Head.

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Thoughts from recruiter.co.uk, Twitter and beyond…

“…if the claimant quacks like an employee and walks like an employee, then they probably are an employee” GUY THOMAS, INSOLVENCY PARTNER, LAW FIRM TAYLOR WALTON

BAE SYSTEMS RECRUITING MOVE AIMS FOR ‘WOW’ FACTOR BAE Systems Submarines is aiming to take advantage of a “massive wow factor” with the move of its 20-person recruitment team into a purpose-built centre within the local Dock Museum in Barrowin-Furness.

The move from its old office in the shipyard to the 21-year-old museum was made on 9 March.

With its sleek, modern design (right), it provides “a massive wow factor” and “a great opportunity to sell the history and the proud heritage of the place and let people know what they are buying into”, BAE Systems Submarines HR director Rowland Cooper said.

It was challenging to find the right talent, not only because BAE is the only submarine builder in the country, but also because Barrow-in-Furness, where the British multinational defence, security and aerospace company’s shipyard is located, is at least 45 mins away from major centres such as Manchester.

Proximity to the Lakes District and the lifestyle that provides was a “major sell”, along with the “proud [shipbuilding] heritage”, as showcased by the museum.

The Dock Museum is BAE Systems Submarines recruitment centre’s new home

“What we have to do is make sure we are able to convince them and their families to move into the area… the Dock Museum is a good way of helping people buy into the community.”

The recruitment centre is not on public display though — the centre is in the museum’s basement, in the basin of an old dock.

It is hoped the “wow factor” will help the BAE Systems Submarines achieve its “massive growth agenda”. It has increased headcount from about 4,500 to about 7,000 in the last five years and plans to hire between 500 and 600 this year and the same again next year.

Apprenticeship and early

Barrow-inFurness shipyard • Built 1871 • First naval vessel built 1877, the HMS Foxhound • First submarine built 1886, the Nordenfelt • First Royal Navy submarine built 1901, the HMS Holland • BAE Systems bought shipyard 1999

careers programmes provide some new hires. However, BAE also looks to other sectors for people with transferrable skills and invests in training and development.

SARAH MARQUET sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk

EMIRATES LOOKS FOR ‘GLOBALISTA’ RECRUITS New services to Orlando (USA) and Bali are among the initiatives driving Emirates Airline to hire 11,000 new employees in 2015, according to Alison Ward, Emirates’ vice president — HR (recruitment).

The new hires are required across the “whole gamut” of roles at the airline, from commercial to ground operations, Ward has told Recruiter. Nearly half (4-5,000 recruits) will be hired into cabin crew roles, Ward said.

The hot weather appeal of Dubai, Emirates’ home base, along

with attractive benefits such as an exchange rate protection scheme and travel discounts, help to Alison Ward draw willing candidates, Ward acknowledged.

Once hired, all of Emirates’ ‘globalistas’ — as they describe the desired recruits who are “inquisitive, thinking outside borders, building bridges” — will

undergo the same induction offering. Since even committed globalistas may experience some homesickness, the airline provides a support network to help them adapt to their new home base, Ward said: “Some need more nurturing. We do a lot of onboarding.”

Emirates is also growing through expansion of its capacity on existing routes with larger aircraft such as the giant A380 during the year.

DEEDEE DOKE deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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News

“A career activist is an individual…who doesn’t look to the company with ‘What are you going to do for me?’ ”

“If we think a business is only going to be a drag on our conversion rate, we’re not prepared to stick it out”

BEV WHITE, MANAGING DIRECTOR, PENNA CAREER SERVICES

PAGEGROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE STEVE INGHAM ON BACKING OUT OF THE RUSSIAN MARKET

FIRM TACKLES ANTI-MILITARY BIAS problem.

Military spouses, usually wives, She said face discrimination when while trying to find work, including overt or from recruiters, and often feel not, a they must hide their military bias against military spouses association to get jobs, said definitely exists.

Recruit for Spouses founder Claire Seagrave, a military and chief executive Heledd wife and experienced personal Kendrick.

Although they may be highly skilled professionals, employers generally assume they will only be in one place for a limited time before following their partners to a new posting. Also, postings to countries where they cannot get work permits often leads to gaps in their CVs. Kendrick founded the Wiltshire-based social enterprise in 2009 in response to this

assistant (PA) gave up her career to have children and “follow the flag” — follow her husband to various postings. When trying to reignite her career, she said she experienced “a lot of discrimination”.

She said Kendrick’s work “was like a breath of fresh air”.

Seagrave is now operations director for motivational speaker agency Military Speakers, the company she found work with

via Recruit for Spouses.

Recruit for Spouses, with five military wives turned part-time recruitment consultants based around the UK, has helped over 500 military spouses find work in the last four years, says Kendrick, but she wants more employers and recruiters to tackle the bias.

It is particularly important now, she said, with the re-basing of 20,000 troops from Germany by 2020, as announced by the government in 2010. Most troops will be bought back to the UK by the end of 2016.

To recruiters and employers, she said: “We’re not looking for special treatment, just a level playing field.”

SARAH MARQUET

GOODGAME TRAINS UP RECRUITERS IN NICHES Hamburg-based Goodgame Studios is training its recruiters to be specialists in particular niches, part of a strategy that helps the fast-growing company find and hire the best talent for hard-to-fill roles.

Speaking to Recruiter, Goodgame’s head of HR Ina Bourmer said the games industry was constantly evolving, requiring new skills and creating competition among firms to secure top talent first.

The company has specialist recruiters attached to all its different departments who do “job visits” — sit with them for two to three days and question those that work there to really understand how the team works.

That is just part of Goodgame’s recruitment strategy, Bourmer explained: “We first of all know who our competitors are both on the product side as well as on the talent side.”

‘Product’ competitors can be other game-producing companies while ‘talent’ competitors can be companies such as Microsoft or Google.

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Goodgame Studios trains its recruiters to be specialists to find top talent

She continued to say her team watches which “talent competitors” hire which kinds of people by tracking both companies and talent on professional networking sites LinkedIn and XING, the latter being popular in Germany. “[We] check what people are leaving, what people are joining them and do they have the same profile as we do and how do they name [job roles] those people working there.”

The team also checks other platforms, forums and groups

where, for example, an artist might exhibit their work or a computer programmer might post their code as those people are not necessarily on LinkedIn or XING. “For example, we know where we have all the different Flash programmers all over the world — we know there are about 1012,000 Flash programmers… we know where they are right now because we have a community of about 30 to 35 sourcers that source people all over the world.”

SARAH MARQUET

“I feel like the Meryl Streep of recruitment” GREG ALLEN FROM LLOYD’S REGISTER AT THE RECRUITER AWARDS SHORTLIST PARTY

PENGUIN PICKS UP MARKETERS VIA TUMBLR Using the theory “you go where the party’s at rather than trying to get the party to come to you”, Penguin Random House recently turned its recruitment eye to social network Tumblr.

It is searching for its next generation of marketers — people who may not have considered working in publishing, rather than people who have graduated from a certain university with a certain 2:1 degree, Penguin Random House UK and international HR director Neil Morrison told Recruiter.

The industry is not talentshort. Morrison said a job advert for an entry-level marketing assistant will typically attract 100 to 200 applications.

Morrison’s party theory saw the company’s dedicated Tumblr page receive more than 10,000 unique visits in the first week it was live [from 16 March] with almost 80 people making applications in that time. By the time the process closed on 10 April, more than 350 people had applied.

Applicants were asked to provide 300-word answers to seven questions designed to see if they have specific qualities Penguin Random House wants, such as online knowledge and skills, and adaptability.

The publishing house’s 25-strong HR team is now sifting through the applications, inviting some to make marketing pitches via video before inviting the final candidates to a one-and-a-half to two-day assessment.

Four candidates will be offered positions for a 13-month paid programme, and two six-month marketing placements within its publishing divisions.

SARAH MARQUET sarah.marquet@recruiter.co.uk RECRUITER

MAY 2015

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News

% SHORTLIST PARTY KICKS

39

OFF AWARDS EXCITEMENT

TOP

of the world’s leading CEOs in the HR sector are very confident in their business’s ability to grow and 61% see more opportunity for growth now than three years ago, according to findings from PwC

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Over 120 recruiters from across the country gathered at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) headquarters in the City of London to celebrate being shortlisted for the 2015 Recruiter Awards for Excellence, in association with Anderson Group. Sean Dixon, head of business services sector at RBS, host and an Awards sponsor, said: “The Recruiter Awards are a highlight of the recruitment calendar and we’re delighted to be involved for the second year running.” The Awards will be held on 6 May at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London’s Mayfair.

FOR MORE VISIT: WWW.RECRUITERAWARDS.CO.UK “The shortlist party was the main reason for coming back [to the UK] as I can’t make the Awards evening itself. It’s the biggest opportunity to get in front of over a thousand recruiters — you’re never going to be in front of that many people in the industry at one place at the same time. It’s the blue-ribboned event of the recruitment year.”

MOST VIEWED JOBS ON OUR WEBSITE

1. Alexander Mann

Solutions, On-site consultant, Derby

SIMON WRIGHT, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, CAREERS IN AUDIT, WHO FLEW IN FROM SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, ESPECIALLY TO BE AT THE SHORTLIST EVENT

Branch manager, Coventry

3. Oasis HR, In-house

recruiters wanted, Nationwide

4. Send Resourcing, Home-based recruitment opportunities

ALL PHOTOS: SARAH MARQUET

2. Coventry University,

“Delighted to sponsor the Awards. After going to last year’s Awards, we felt we had to contribute to promoting the industry”

“As an umbrella company in a changing market, exposure is at an all-time high. We want to be at the forefront of the compliance debate in the industry.”

PAM EASEN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, H1 HEALTHCARE

ANDREW PINNELL, MARKETING MANAGER, RACS

L-r: Natalie Kircher-Smith and Kelly Stride, White Stuff

5. Ruella James, TOP

Researcher, financial services, London

5

MOST VIEWED ARTICLES ONLINE

1. Fears of fines for

recruiters over latest HMRC reporting requirements

2. Fraud arrest man

Bell had links with recruitment industry

3. Matchtech to exit

London professional staffing market

4. Former recruitment chief admits fraud

5. Recruiters may need

alternative to paying staff commission

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L-r: Helen Stokes, Major Players; Sean Dixon, RBS; Allison Upton, Major Players

EXCLUSIVE PIRATES PEER-TO-PEER CLUB GROWING FAST Organisers of what is billed as a “very exclusive” recruitment business leaders’ club say they’re focusing on “growing faster, harder with structure and purpose” nearly a year into its establishment.

The Recruitment Directors Lunch Club (RDCL), nicknamed the Pirates, was founded by industry veterans Gary Goldsmith, former InterQuest group chief operating officer and Computer Futures managing director, and Dean Kelly, chief executive of education support services recruiter Synarbor.

RDLC operates as a membership peer-to-peer learning group whose 40 members “are prepared to share at least as much as they get. ‘Helping ourselves by helping others’ is a mantra within the group”, Goldsmith told Recruiter editor DeeDee Doke.

Chaired by Goldsmith and Kelly, the six to nine events held annually take place under strict Chatham House Rules. The exclusivity of the membership also is a key feature of its appeal.

Because of its growth through recommendation and invitation and a “strict” blackball voting policy, Goldsmith said members tell the organisers “membership… is nearly as hard to acquire as a recruiter ever being allowed to join [private club] Soho House”. Membership costs £200 per month.

The group hopes to recruit more women into its ranks as it pursues such projects as building a ‘Pirates Only’ learning centre to share costs of bringing trainees into member businesses. Organisers say their members represent over 1,000 recruiters.

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News

Tech & tools

DATA-BASED DECISION MAKING HELPS RECRUITERS THRIVE WHETHER IT IS PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS TO ASSESS BEHAVIOUR, TIME-TO-HIRE METRICS OR IN-DEPTH MARKET INTELLIGENCE, DATA CAN AID DECISION MAKING IN ALL AREAS OF RECRUITMENT to do something, a lot of data is already in your head or known by someone on your team,” he says.

“If you’re making decisions based on gut-feel alone it should be because no data exists to support those decisions, no one else has a useful view or the decision needs to be made there and then.”

Who is responsible for the data?

The simple answer is everyone.

Each department will have its own system and therefore its own data. It’s down to each one to work out how it can be put to best use for their respective function but also the business as a whole. Collaboration across different departments makes the data potentially even more powerful. If responsibility is assigned to one person/ department, it is important that the individual/s can be as much

What decisions can be databased?

Data has a part to play in the vast majority of business decisions.

It isn’t a case of switching off instinct and all human behaviours used to arrive at a conclusion but using them in tandem with hard evidence.

Guest believes that in five to 10 years’ time, big data will take over much of the decision making in recruitment. “There are simply no downsides to using data correctly,” he says. “There can’t be. Data is truth — nothing more, nothing less — and as soon as it is treated like that much more business advantage will be gained from it.”

McGuire says that in an ideal world, most decisions will be based on data. “That’s not to say you need to look at a report every time you want

a business partner/s as they are a data scientist or technology specialist.

“Organisations need people who don’t just create and analyse datasets but understand how you can use the data to influence the business and decision making, and add commercial value,” says James Ballard, director of specialist HR and IT recruiter Annapurna Recruitment. “Are they the sort of people who understand the problems/issues facing the business and can come back with a dataset that might help to bring about a business improvement?”

Incentivise data-gathering Those organisations serious about making better use of data must put effort in the front end to ensure the data is being gathered.

McGuire says that the biggest problem for most companies that want to have a proper data-driven approach is that they don’t record information properly in the first place.

“There needs to be an incentive for recruiters to add data to their systems in an accurate and timely fashion,” he says. “One of the best ways to encourage the right behaviour is to put useful, actionable data into the hands of the people you

For more on data-based analytics and metrics, see Jon Hull’s Bloggers with Bite on p42

IKON

Data-based decision making isn’t a natural fit for all recruiters. To excel in their core job, they rely on soft skills, their instinct and powers of judgement.

Like it or not, though, hard data is likely to play an increasingly important part in their lives. “In the same way that the internet killed poor recruiters over the last 10 years but allowed the best ones to thrive, then data will kill the poor recruiters in the next 10 years and allow the best ones to thrive,” says Giles Guest, director of online recruitment specialists Enhance Media.

Meanwhile, Dan McGuire, founder of visual analytics company cube19, believes that if recruiters aren’t using data to make decisions, especially their own proprietary data, they are “wilfully” creating a competitive disadvantage for their company: “The leaders in the recruitment industry, in fact every industry, use data all day, every day to make smarter decisions in every function of their business.”

want to record in the first place so that they directly benefit.”

Beware bad data The computer adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’ can be applied to data-based decision making and McGuire cites bad data (data that is out-of-date, duplicated, mis-formatted, badly structured or just plain incorrect) as the chief danger to it. And it can dent the bottom line: according to Experian Data Quality, inaccurate data can lose a business as much as 12% of revenue. Systems and processes at the front end of data gathering can minimise/ eliminate bad data and, while implementation of these in most organisations is likely to fall within the remit of IT, all of those involved in input need to be made aware of its dangers.

Equip and train people Ensure individuals have the necessary tools to extract and exploit data. As Ballard points out, how data is visualised is a major weak spot in many organisations and advises looking at third party products that can help to make it more accessible.

A range of business intelligence tools and real-time dashboards make the process of extracting and analysing data far more accessible — so do your research. Ballard explains that at Annapurna, the training and development manager invests a lot of time into helping individuals become masters of their system and able to extrapolate reports and information.

“Recruiters tend to be relationship builders and their natural skillset isn’t based around systems so they need support,” he says. “In future every professional will have more expectation of the need to be more system and data savvy.”

SUE WEEKES

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Sector Analysis

Legal CUTS IN GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT DURING THE RECESSION HAVE COME BACK TO HAUNT RECRUITERS, AS SHORTAGES PUT CERTAIN CANDIDATES IN A STRONG BARGAINING POSITION The recovery in the UK economy has boosted the confidence of both candidates and employers in the legal sector, says Gun Judge, resourcing manager at law firm Addleshaw Goddard. However, this is not unalloyed good news for recruiters.

According to Judge, the short-term, cyclical way in which much of the legal sector goes about its recruitment is now coming back to haunt recruiters. During the 2008-09 recession, many firms – although not her own – decreased their graduate intake, she says, which has led to shortages down the line in certain areas.

“Two of the strongest areas of demand are for transactional lawyers in real estate and financial services, where there appears to be renewed vigour in the market,” she says.

“The reason we have got such a gap in the market for transactional lawyers who are twoto-four years’ qualified is that no one qualified into these sectors, which is why you are seeing companies fighting to get good candidates and to retain their staff,” says Judge.

The problem is systemic within the legal sector, says Judge. “I think it is the nature of the beast. In the legal sector, you need to recruit people where you have work coming through. The problem is that, because it is such a long road to becoming qualified, it doesn’t give you that much flexibility to gear up to respond to drastic market changes.”

Yvonne Smyth, director at Hays Legal, says “the high demand and lack of people with the relevant skills” leaves this group of lawyers in a strong bargaining position, where they will move unless they get what they want – in particular, to be invested in. “They are looking for training not only on how to be a better technical lawyer but also in business development and how to make a personal impact,” she says. Having just one “champion” within the firm to promote their career is no longer sufficient – they are “probably

MOVING JOBS

looking for “two or three mentors”.

“The clever firm is promoting that,” says Smyth.

“Rather than focusing just on the newly qualified and the partner pipeline, the middle level is being looked after a lot better,” she adds.

Kath Riley, managing director at Douglas Scott Legal Recruitment, says this group of lawyers is looking for opportunities “that allow them to get closer to the client”. “If you haven’t developed a portfolio of clients, you are going to struggle to get on the partnership path,” she explains.

If retaining key staff is a major concern, attempts to improve diversity across the legal workforce are a work in progress, says Riley. While measures such as the introduction of ‘blind CVs’ by law firm Clifford Chance, which last year removed candidate and university names from CVs, are welcome, Riley says that more needs to be done.

“Unless you are going to consider people before they do their A-levels, it is going to be difficult,” she says. “A lot of people do get into the law due to having a strong network from the traditional professional background, really.”

Pete Chater, head of recruitment at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, says: “Gender is still an issue in terms of progression through to senior leadership, and is a particular focus of the firm.” This has led it to introduce training in unconscious bias. “We have to make sure that, during those conversations about who will make partner, we aren’t bringing unconscious bias into those conversations and decisions,” he says.

Smyth says that efforts by the sector to improve diversity are “a lot more than lip service” citing PRIME, a scheme supported by an alliance of more than 80 law firms including Addleshaw Goddard, which offers work experience to “kids in state schools, where no parents went to university”. “The buy-in is there, but it is a bit of a slow burn,” she adds.

Views from the market Kath Riley, managing director, Douglas Scott Legal Recruitment: “Apprentices are being embraced, but it will take a number of years.”

Yvonne Smyth, director, Hays Legal: “Why do people move or stay? Because they need to be invested in.”

Gun Judge, resourcing manager, Addleshaw Goddard: “There is increasing evidence to suggest that the law is becoming a more exclusive and elitist profession.”

Pete Chater, head of recruitment at law firm Herbert Smith Freehills: “Recruiting top talent is as important as winning great clients.”

COLIN COTTELL

Source: Douglas Scott Legal Recruitment 2015 Salary & Benefits Benchmarker report

RANK OF WOMEN SOLICITORS

Likelihood of lawyers voluntarily changing jobs in the next six months

Q Women Q Men

Average percentage of female solicitors by level

31%

42%

27%

undecided

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24%

unlikely

likely

12

Partners

Associates

57.2%

Trainees

57.1% Source: Chambers Student 2014 Gender in the Law Survey

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Market Indicators

Global Spotlight on Chile COMPETITION IS FIERCE AMONG RECRUITERS AND ALTHOUGH NEW AGENCIES, ESPECIALLY FOREIGN ONES, ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE, BARRIERS CAN DEFINITELY BE OVERCOME Extended recruitment services — corporate governance advice, candidate screening and outsourced HR functions, for example — are slowly but surely creeping into the Chilean market. While in high demand from clients, such services are generally supplied by only the most trusted recruitment firms.

The Chilean market is competitive, with many recruitment firms scrambling to gain a foothold, Amrop managing partner Max Vicuña explains.

At the top of the recruitment food chain, or pyramid as he calls it, are about four well-known, well-respected recruiters, including Amrop.

Intensive sector knowledge, local knowledge and good contacts are what have got them to the top but it is an extension of their services that is keeping them there. In Amrop’s case, that added value is corporate governance advice, into which the company now puts 50% of its efforts.

For Hays’ Chilean managing director Pedro Lacerda, advice on HR policies is helping clients achieve economies of scale: “We are not having the role as recruiters; we are having the role clearly as advisers in HR policies.”

He continued to say companies, particularly international firms, were increasingly open to services other than the standard search and selection offerings — for example, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and working with managed service providers (MSPs).

“When we talk to managers and HR people, there is a clear tendency to outsource much more of their HR function. Companies don’t want just the standard recruitment solution; they want much more efficient tools and solutions,” Lacerda says.

That ability to help drive and advise a company’s strategy only comes with experience and trust, he says. He adds: “I think it is clearly a competitive advantage.”

Selling that strategic vantage has been a hard road, says Vicuña, who founded his own executive search firm 20 years ago. It then became part of the Amrop network in 1996.

It was hard in the beginning to sell the value of executive search, let alone advice, but companies are increasingly becoming convinced of the value.

According to Vicuña, about four recruiters sit at the top of the pyramid, about 40 in the middle and “as many as you like at the bottom” — all trying to make that next step up.

That is where the competition comes from and, alongside market reaction, is what creates a barrier to entry for any new agencies wishing to start up.

“So if the market values you as a relevant player they will accept your phone calls, they will accept [your invitation] to come to your office and… to take part in the process because you are a big firm or a relevant firm. They will not accept any of those invitations coming from an unknown brand or consultant.”

The other complication is the “local, very closeminded” nature of Chileans. For a foreigner, Vicuña explains, it can be very hard to develop a social or business network, especially if you want to recruit at the executive level.

His advice for setting up a recruitment business in Chile? “You will be in trouble… really,” he says, “unless you get into an ongoing [established] company.”

That is exactly what Empresaria Group did with the acquisition of family-run Alternattiva in 2007.

Group finance director Spencer Wreford said Alternattiva had been operating for quite some time, so had a strong base of local staff with the local knowledge.

“I agree that you can’t just parachute people in from overseas and expect them to be able to set something up. I think you have got to have people on the ground. It’s one of those markets that still [requires] face-to-face [contact],” Wreford says.

Off the back of that acquisition, the group launched its executive search arm, Monroe Consulting, in Chile last year and hired local people to run it. The launch was supported by the back office capability and physical office space already there because of the earlier acquisition.

SARAH MARQUET

According to Fernando Gutierrez, who heads up contractor management company CXC Global in Latin America, three key government reforms are creating uncertainty in the Chilean economy.

The first, implemented last year, was a tax reform that increased government funds by 3% in order to fund the second reform — the country’s educational system.

The third reform is regulation of the labour market itself. But, because of the global economic downturn, the government has postponed its discussion on this reform. Gutierrez says the proposed reforms would, basically, modernise collective contract negotiations and strengthen unions. However, opponents say such reforms would increase labour costs.

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Labour force 2005-09: 8,458,204; 2010-2014: 8,593,048 2013 GDP: US$277.2bn (£186.3bn) 2013 population: 17.62m Source: WorldBank

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Interaction

SOAP

BOX

NearSourcing for the farsighted

As the general election approaches, newspaper headlines are, as expected, becoming increasingly dominated by the political footballs of rising immigration and increased labour mobility, and the threat of a backlash from the voters at the polls.

The concern, however, is that the positive economic impact of migration is often lost. For example, the NHS would collapse without foreign national doctors, nurses, opticians and pharmacists.

Many IT, telecom, pharmaceutical and other professional services could not survive without skills obtained from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Farming and agricultural industries would become uncompetitive without migrant pickers and packers.

This movement of labour across borders is certainly two way, as anyone walking around Berlin, Bratislava, Bucharest, Frankfurt, Krakow and Sarajevo can testify. The Independent last year described the appeal to Brits of living and working in Romania (‘British expats in Romania: they come over here stealing our jobs’, 12 February 2013).

Does this economic migration make sense and is it sustainable?

It is part of a natural phenomena — and one that will proliferate in different forms. One type can be described as ‘NearSourcing’ of talent.

NearSourcing is offshoring but within a two to three-hour flight time. Since May 2005, with the accession of the nine states of Europe, companies from the UK, the US and the West in general have set up centres across the CEE. Our own industry saw Krakow as ideal, with businesses such as Alexander Mann Solutions, Hays and Kenexa setting up support functions there. Drawn by low fixed costs and a supply of staff with excellent education and language skills, the pull proved irresistible —

RICKY MARTIN

KEITH ROBINSON is co-founder and client solutions director for CEE resourcing and recruitment consultancy Resource Central

Being a positive leader and creating positive energy

Everything around us is made up of energy — positive or negative. Energy is powerful enough to create or destroy success. How you contribute is as important as what you contribute. Put simply — what you put in is what you get out.

Working in a recruitment office can often feel like a roller coaster and these ups and downs are part of the job.

Your energy alone can determine the success of a meeting, a workday or even the company. If you approach a meeting, a client or candidate with negative energy, the outcome will most likely be negative. This is why it’s important to be able to turn negative energy into motivation — “bouncebackability” as football fans may say. This will result in a more energised and productive workforce — vital to success. Positive energy has been essential to me since creating Hyper Recruitment Solutions (HRS) and is pivotal to our working environment. Here are my top tips for increasing positive energy: Start with yourself Ask yourself some simple questions to find out the type your of energy you may be contributing. Are you a positive or negative person? Are your energy levels high or low? How does the team respond to you? If you begin with yourself, others around you will follow. Do not wait for others to ar create a rewarding, motivating environment — you have the power to create it and it starts with you. Simple th tthings like being in a good mood and projecting a positive attitude will brighten up everyone’s day and create more positive energy.

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and continues to do so, with major new investments by Randstad in Budapest and our own Resource Central operation in Sarajevo.

The economics make sense. However, is it right to ‘steal’ a region’s top talent? Addressing the UK’s talent deficit doesn’t always mean importing people. And, if Britain is ‘full’ and the infrastructure cannot cope, why do we continue to hire more people from abroad?

Surely it’s a two-fold issue: first, a training/development gap because our education system is not aligned with the needs of industry and society; and second, a ‘fear gap’ based on the misconception that we need to ‘import people’ to address our talent deficit. We need a balance that involves taking jobs ‘out’ to people rather than always bringing the people ‘in’ to us.

This need will only gather pace because it’s driven by greater demand and an increasingly short supply of people will move from the CEE. In the past six months in Bucharest, ADP and Vodafone have opened shared services centres (SSCs) and aim to fill 10,000+ jobs.

The companies are drawn by the EU and the Romanian government’s investments in infrastructure — and assuring their success with an educated workforce with excellent language skills, a low salary base (although wages are rising) and scalability.

So, is NearSourcing a passing fad? No. The long-term dynamics are clear: the market-led redistribution of work, jobs and wealth eastwards and southwards — together with the conscious building of sustainable economic growth across the CEE — is not a trend but a redefining of ‘Europe’ that’s happening now.

Create a sense of community in your team It’s human nature to want to feel part of something. Group and individual goals will create an atmosphere of teamwork. When people feel connected to others, they focus more and produce better results. Something as simple as team names will create a sense of identity and remind staff they are part of a group — and promote a bit of healthy competition.

Deal with negativity — don’t ignore it If a negative employee is bringing down energy levels, it is crucial for team dynamics and the company that the leader deals with this immediately. Otherwise, it will quickly disrupt and infect the energy of other staff.

Treat employees like they make a difference and they will When was the last time you praised a colleague? A simple way to create positive energy and motivate staff is to offer recognition as opposed to criticism. Reward the positives and support those who are not quite meeting or exceeding expectations. This can quickly shift energy levels and build momentum towards hitting targets. Use motivational phrases such as “You really made a difference by…”, “I’m so impressed with…” and “We couldn’t have done it without your…”.

It’s impossible to be positive 24/7. So, start with one of these tips and watch the energy in your office improve. To improve our industry, we need to take ownership of the way we conduct ourselves. Remember: positive energy is contagious.

RICKY MARTIN is managing director and founder of Hyper Recruitment

Solutions. Find out more at www.hyperec.com or @Hyperec_HRS on Twitter

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Interaction

SOUND

WEB

BITES

COMMENT

“If devolution were to spread throughout the regions of the UK, would this be positive or negative for recruiters?”

Stewart London Managing director, Athona Recruitment

Here at Athona, we employ doctors to work in Scotland. Some take short-term contracts and some stay there long term. Some are Scottish, others are English. If Scotland sets its own tax rates, we don’t know if these English locums will be judged as English or Scottish for tax purposes. Will it depend on where they are registered?

How long their contract is for? What’s the cut-off point? The bottom line is no-one knows yet how this will all pan out; it’s all ifs and buts right now. But you don’t want to end up in a situation where working in Scotland is more complicated and involves more red tape than working in the European Union.

Russell Stewart Managing director, Simpson Booth Our view would be that further devolution would lead to a greater administrative burden for businesses and individuals in the recruitment sphere. Simpson Booth is a business operating out of London and Aberdeen, so we have seen both sides of the coin in the UK, and my own views come as a proud but practical Scot. Regional devolution within Britain would undoubtedly generate red tape, and experience shows that compliance can be a drain on resource as well as a barrier to efficiency.

For every business those hurdles can come in the shape of financial reporting, employment law and Health and Safety Executive regulations but for those in recruitment there are particular challenges in variations in contract law, taxation and other areas with an impact on HR. Giving devolved power in those key areas can be dangerous; as we know, politicians and legislators will often impose changes for political gain rather than practical purposes. A level playing field across the UK would be my preference.

Joseph Henry Managing partner, Westminster Search and Selection

Devolution is the biggest political opportunity for the recruitment industry in a generation, and recruiters should embrace it in the most positive way possible. Devolution goes further than the traditional parliaments and assemblies of the Celtic nations and is picking up speed. The opportunities for recruiters include engaging to shape local labour laws that are responsive to local industries; helping create economic policies that benefit local people; and the use of local businesses in the supply chain for newly empowered regions. All these will boost direct and in-direct job creation. Additionally, more civil service roles will move from London, spurring job creation and local housing markets, bringing in cash from London and reversing the trend of three decades. It is not a completely perfect picture, as there will be new tax regimes, new business rates and new laws to deal with, but on balance the boost to local economies that devolution will bring will far outweigh minor headaches.

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Labour’s careers advice promise fails to involve recruiters (9 April) The plans announced today [9 April] must be seen as a positive step forward. Of concern is the way in which this advice may be delivered — or to be more precise, the people delivering the advice.

The standard of careers advice provided at schools, colleges and universities is poor at best and any move to rectify this should be welcomed.

But it needs to be delivered by people who actually understand their backside from their elbow.

Over the last few years there’s been a meteoric rise in the number of self-proclaimed ‘careers experts’ — prompted largely by the recession, and escalated since the recovery. However, take a look at the biographies of many of these people and it’s clear that they have very little (if any) real-life understanding of what they are actually providing advice on; it seems their ‘insight’ comes more from Google rather than actual practical experience.

Of course, that’s not always such a bad thing.

But really, is it right that someone who has never recruited for graduates or even spoken to a graduate recruitment manager should offer advice on the subject? That’s where recruiters and other employment specialists come in.

The REC’s [Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s] Kate Shoesmith is right in encouraging recruiters to forge effective links with local schools and colleges — school leavers and undergraduates need real-world practical support and advice based on real employment scenarios that are delivered by those who have first-hand experience in such matters.

Whatever happens after [the general election on] 7 May, there needs to be a rethink in the way careers advice is provided to early stage jobseekers.

Closer collaboration between education and industry is not a nice to have, it’s an economic necessity.

Paul MacKenzie-Cummins, director, ClearlyPR I find this proposal by Labour somewhat strange, as under the previous Tory government, a highly successful Careers Advice programme was developed by taking the somewhat inefficient public sector service into the private sector. It was then scrapped under Labour.

Mike Butler

Latest Report on Jobs reveal perm placements remain high (10 April) Wonderful news and a trend which has been reflected on our job board too. The market is definitely more in the hands of the candidates now, for which employer branding will become even important.

Candidates are now in the position to pick and choose who they work for based on culture fit in addition to salary and benefits.

Jo Rowbotham

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Recruitment Matters Issue 34 May 2015

100 signees before Christmas: GRC gets ready for next level The REC’s flagship Good Recruitment Campaign (GRC) wants more than 100 organisations signed up before 2016.

The campaign is preparing new ventures, with an allpurpose online hub to open by mid-year.

The hub will house a wide range of information, including research and white paper reports, webinars, videos and blogs.

It will also feature social media venues designed to replicate the kind of discussions that take place during live GRC events.

The GRC was launched in April 2014 to promote good practice in recruitment. GRC charter signees pledge to use REC member agencies when hiring staff, and to enact hiring practices consistent with the REC’s own charter.

Sixty-six organisations joined the campaign in its first year, including McDonald’s, Penguin Random House and Arsenal Football Club.

REC head of strategic projects Steve Othen says

What’s inside The 2-3 Intelligence and REC Talk The conquering candidate, recruiters are growing and fighting recruitment’s corner

your 4-5 Charting course Could signing up to a charter be just what your brand needs?

the GRC is keen to grow its community.

“We had the charter that signatories signed up to, but we want to offer a place for people to interact and share ideas,” he says.

REC members will also have access to the hub, which Othen predicts will spur conversations between agencies and clients.

“Like the GRC itself, it’s a conversation piece that members can have with their clients, and they can talk about candidate experience, diversity, feedback. They can then redirect them to the hub and suggest they sign

up to the campaign,” he says.

Senior vice-president of people at McDonald’s UK Jez Langhorn says the GRC has given the company the tools it needs to improve its recruitment practices.

“At McDonald’s, we want to attract and retain people with the right attitude to fulfil their potential and I’m particularly proud of the development opportunities, benefits and flexible working we offer at all levels to help our people do this,” he says.

“We look forward to working with REC on this and encourage more businesses to support the campaign.”

6Legal lowdown

HMRC has introduced new regulations on reporting for all temporary workers. Are you up to date with the new requirements?

Institute of 7 Recruitment Professionals James Goddard from Monarch Digital Recruitment and Julia Robertson, CEO of Impellam Group

and 8Events Training An apprentice in recruitment speaks about his experience

www.rec.uk.com RM p1-MAY-A.indd 23

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Leading the Industry

the intelligence Nina Mguni, senior researcher at the REC, explains Getting good people to apply for jobs is becoming harder.

And this will have an impact on organisations’ bottom lines.

In the March 2015 labour market statistics, the number of recorded vacancies reached an all-time high. As of November 2014-January 2015, there were 723,000 vacancies, up from 582,000 vacancies in the same period last year. In terms of supply, the number of people that are actively seeking work per vacancy has fallen.

In November to January 2014, there were four unemployed people for every vacancy, but a year later this ratio stands at 2.6 people. The results are also illustrated in the REC/KPMG/Markit Report on Jobs. Our data shows that in the last year, recruiters report that permanent and temporary availability is worse when compared to the previous month.

The search for suitable candidates will be difficult given the reduction in the pool of candidates actively looking for a role, and the contraction in the number of candidates.

According to LinkedIn’s data from its ‘UK Recruiting Trends Report’ in 2015, just under 50% of talent acquisition leaders cite competition as the main obstacle to attracting the best talent. In response, 57% of companies source passive candidates. This may seem

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high, but this is within the context of a global average of 61% of companies, while 72% of companies in the USA source passive candidates.

Ensuring a positive candidate experience is one way in which employers can ensure that they have a competitive advantage to source candidates. Data from the Candidate experience (CandE) awards is useful instruction on what employers should be thinking about.

Their report finds that winners of the 2013 CandE awards were more likely to set clear expectations for the time to apply a role, details on privacy obligations, screening questions and to provide feedback on the process.

The CandE awards report also finds that approximately one in three candidates (31%) would be willing to speak out publicly about a negative experience.

This is clearly not only an issue for just the resourcing team. In a report by Boston Consulting Group, improved recruiting, onboarding and employer branding can lead to just over three times an increase in revenue growth; and profit margin will increase by two.

If this is the future, the challenge will be to accurately define who the candidate is and what they are looking for in a new role.

■ Upper quartile ■ Median ■ Lower quartile 40 30 20 %

The conquering candidate

Fig 1: RIB members employee growth

10 0

-10 -20

Mar May Jul Sep Nov Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov Dec Jan 13 14 15

Recruiters are growing For the last few months we have talked about the strong revenue growth that recruiters have been achieving. This month we are focusing on the recruiters themselves.

Figure 1 shows the growth rate in the number of employees for RIB members. The median employer is showing employee growth of 14%, a few percentage points lower than revenue growth.

Indeed three-quarters of RIB members are growing their own employee headcount by at least 3% compared with last year. A quarter of RIB members are growing their headcount by more than a stunning 32% compared with last year. The last few months have not only been good for recruitment companies, but also for the individual recruiters working in them.

• Chris Ansell is chief financial officer at Recruitment Industry Benchmarking (RIB). The RIB Index provides bespoke confidential reports on industry trends. See www.ribindex.com; info@ribindex. com: 020 8544 9807. The RIB is a strategic partner of the REC.

Register for TREC 2015 Now in its second year, the Talent Recruitment & Employment Conference (TREC) will once again provide a unique conference programme designed and driven by market participants, ensuring topical and genuine debates, led by senior speakers.

TREC 2015 will provide an overview of key emerging market trends, new challenges and opportunities in this dynamic sector. The event features debate and networking opportunities with senior European professionals from HR, Talent, Operations, Procurement and Recruitment.

• For more information, visit rec-irp.uk.com/events/trec-2015

www.rec.uk.com 13/04/2015 16:49

Leading the Industry

Tom Hadley, director of policy and professional services at the REC

The golden thread of good recruitment

The View

We’ve taken part in a flurry of high-profile events over the past month or so, using platforms in the UK and in Europe to spread the word to employers and policy makers about the positive contribution our industry makes. A golden thread running through the various discussions has been the omni-importance of good recruitment practice.

The recent Freight Transport Association (FTA) summit to address the driver shortage crisis is a case in point. Over 600 delegates at the Richo Arena in Coventry (bizarrely, now home to the London Wasps rugby team) discussed policy measures to bring more people into the sector – including insurance, better funding for training and campaigns to promote careers in the sector. We took the opportunity to explain how employers can better manage their recruitment process: policy changes in themselves will not make a difference if hiring criteria is not prioritised.

We had similar debates about social workers at an event in Stevenage, and about NHS staffing challenges in Peterborough.

The acute shortages of nurses, doctors and social workers are well documented. Yes, we need the right balance between substantive and agency staff but we also need to recognise that effectively sourcing and managing flexible staff is part of the solution.

Meanwhile… over in Brussels my colleague Steve Othen (who manages the REC’s Good Recruitment Campaign) took part in a European Commission seminar on public/private sector partnership and effective labour market policies. Our collaborative work with the DWP is seen as an example of good practice at EU level, and discussions in Brussels focused on the idea that labour market policies in areas such as youth unemployment, inclusion and diversity or longterm unemployment can only succeed if there is a parallel focus on the way that employers hire staff.

Other recent events have included speaking at the DHL Supply Chain event in Birmingham. The theme here was compliance and good practice through the supply chain – a priority that both myself and my fellow speaker from the TUC were happy to endorse! This applies in the UK and across global markets, a point which was also brought home at a seminar I took part in over in Turin, Italy, as part of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) work to help national business federations from around the world to ramp up their campaigning activities.

At the heart of any successful business is the quality and drive of the people that work there, and the way that the hiring process is managed to bring in people with the right values and skills is key to the reputation of any employer.

Good recruitment is going global!

We are getting close to the general election and it still looks too close to call. The impact on the recruitment industry over the next five years is likely to be significant whoever wins, and the role of the REC in promoting the industry and fighting its corner is going to become even more critical.

We have just published a book of essays by leading economists and thinkers called Building the best jobs market in the world: the expert view. This publication is important because it defines the UK’s dynamic and successful jobs market as the key to economic success. It goes further in explaining that a well-functioning jobs market is a precursor to prosperity for all.

You can download it for free at www.rec.uk.com/expertview.

We decided to seek the views and opinions not just of those who have similar ideas to us about the labour market, but of a wide spectrum of commentators. Many will be surprised to see Frances O’Grady of the TUC, Danny Blanchflower – a left leaning economist, the Joseph Roundtree Foundation, as well as Labour peer Baroness Prosser, Brendan Barber, Demos and the Work Foundation in an REC publication.

We feel that the success of our labour market is being taken for granted by many and criticised unfairly by some. We have record employment, the highest ever participation by women in our jobs market and unemployment falling faster than ever before. Our employment rate of 73.3% and unemployment rate of just 5.7% is the envy of most other developed economies. So while we don’t agree with all the views of those that contributed to the book, it’s clear the politicians need to think long and hard about how to nurture and further develop our jobs market in the period before and after the election.

The REC is apolitical; we will work with whoever is elected by the British people on 7 May. However, we have very clear and strong ideas about how to make our jobs market even better and of course we will continue to make ourselves heard. You can all help us do this by talking to your prospective MPs about the importance of the recruitment industry and the part it plays to deliver a flexible and agile jobs market. If you want to help us do this go to www.rec.uk.com/manifesto and register.

In the meantime you can rest assured that the REC is talking, promoting and explaining the impact that the recruitment industry has on employers, by helping them get the people they need to be successful, and on individuals who we help find work and often their dream job.

Jobs transform lives – that’s why the REC will be fighting to achieve the best jobs market in the world.

• You can follow Tom on Twitter @hadleyscomment

• If you want to keep in touch daily, follow me on twitter @kevingreenrec

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Recruitment Matters May 2015 3

13/04/2015 16:50

The Big Talking Point

Brand: no other word simultaneously usly excites and terrifies businesses. Building ding a brand is part and parcel of growth h and almost a vital as putting a product in n front of a customer.

A study by Harvard’s Business School hool in 2005 described the process of brandandbuilding as “inherently uncontrollable, ble, driven as much by the cultures and consumers that own them”. But are there methods businesses can deploy to put them on the best foot?

A company may stretch out its name ame ng through sponsorships, merchandising and social media. But what’s often overlooked is the spirit of goodwill. That’s why some organisations are taking the pledge… literally.

Good for community, good for business In 2013, Birmingham businesses joined ned forces with its city council to launch h the Birmingham Business Charter for Social ocial Responsibility. The Charter aimed to o boost the local economy by rewarding ing local businesses who worked with one another.

“But it isn’t just about workers and d their pay packet,” explains Birmingham city ity councillor Stewart Stacey. “Businesses es m and other suppliers will benefit from improved workforce motivation and d hat productivity. And the social value that the charter seeks to obtain from ourr contractual arrangements will benefit fit all our communities.” will Councillor Stacey says the goodwill generated by the charter raises awareness as well as spirits, both keyy ingredients in fostering brand awareness. eness.

There is also a lot to be said for leveraging off others. By pledging to o sign a charter, a business finds their name me up p in lights with a number of high-profile affiliates. And that says nothing of the gravitas of working alongside the public sector too.

Keeping the house tidy Signing a charter can also help a business manage its internal operations. The principles behind a charter can offer insight and guidance for mapping out plans and doing things better. It can

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Charter Course: Why signing up to a campaign will aid your brand Could signing up to a charter be what your brand needs? Recruitment Matters editor Michael Oliver explains

offer tools and resources that businesses ha e had access to. to might not have “We have worked hard on a number of workshops this year on how to interview, how to manage a candidate’s toolkit so they’ve got a suite of tools; so we’ve got a consistent recruitment method and a process that is consistent with a good candidate experience,” says Adrian Wightman, resourcing team manager at RWE npower.

RWE npower is one of 60 signees of the Recruitment & Employment

Confederation’s Good Recruitment Campaign charter (see also p1). It aims to promote positive recruiting experiences by giving signees everything they need to hire by the book.

Wightman says the campaign has been vital in sharpening npower’s hiring practices.

“The danger is hiring managers rely on intuition,” he says. “Clearly, that’s not a

www.rec.uk.com 13/04/2015 16:50

Talking the talk of the GRC Businesses across the country are signing up to the Good Recruitment Campaign.

Here’s what some of them have to say about the charter…

We at The HR Lounge and HR Society are committed to good practice in recruitment and are delighted to sign the Good Recruitment Campaign charter to demonstrate this publicly. The principals are things that we strive to do every day in our business. We wish the campaign every success.

Angela O’Connor, chief executive, The HR Lounge and president The HR Society Dixons Retail is very proud to be on the advisory panel with the REC and to have been a part of the Good Recruitment Campaign. Dixons fully supports the principles outlined in the charter both from our company resourcing strategy and through the partners we work with. We have worked to create an aspirational charter that will support all types and sizes of organisations build their own goals towards best practice.

Bridget Hutchinson, head of resourcing & employer brand, Dixons Retail A consumer-centric approach to candidate engagement is essential for success. The majority of candidates will not be successful with their application, therefore rejection capability must be as good as selection capability. The Good Recruitment Campaign has candidate experience at its heart.

Paul Maxin, head of talent and Resourcing, FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) It is important to our future success that we have skilled and capable individuals working in ‘The Arsenal Way’ and the Good Recruitment Campaign makes absolute sense.

Karen Ann Allchurch, HR director, Arsenal Football Club good place to be when you’re wanting to deliver a good candidate experience. It’s about standardising the experience, and improving the selection experience so we’re hiring the best possible candidate.

“The GRC has given us the next level.

It has given us a different set of tools to use and evolve our processes, and make them more in-house.”

Making things automatic Signing a charter sets the benchmark and enables a business to latch its brand onto something meaningful. But how long

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The REC’s Good Recruitment Campaign backs up exactly what we have always tried to do at Yell, namely put the candidate at the heart of everything we do and ensure that recruitment is a two-way process where values and objectives are aligned.

Andrew Groves, head of recruitment, CSR and wellbeing, Yell We have joined the Good Recruitment Campaign as we feel strongly that it echoes the principles and approach we take towards recruitment at all levels of our business. At McDonald’s we want to attract and retain people with the right attitude to fulfil their potential, and I’m particularly proud of the development opportunities, benefits and flexible working we offer at all levels to help our people do this.

We look forward to working with REC on this and encourage more businesses to support the campaign.

Jez Langhorn, senior VP of people, McDonald’s UK Our people are our greatest asset and so ensuring that we acquire and develop the very best talent is critical to our future performance and growth. We are fully supportive of the Good Recruitment Campaign and all that it stands for – at its core it is a responsible and candidate-centric approach, which we strive to demonstrate in every single interaction we have.

Ben Lamont, talent and diversity director, Kellogg’s We know that competitive advantage lies in the quality of your people. So improving recruitment and resourcing practice is not only the right thing to do, but makes good business sense. The CBI is proud to support the Good Recruitment Campaign and we encourage other employers to get on board.

John Cridland, director general, CBI

should organisations push for others to sign things like pledges and charters.

Not for long, believe it or not.

The goal of any charter would be for it to become ingrained in the practices of its signees, so much so they cease to need it.

“Something like this shouldn’t be needed in the future – but once you get a certain threshold of people sign up to it, they will have to because everybody will be there,” says the director of Rethink Recruitment Michael Bennett.

“For me, the principles of the GRC are

fairly fundamental and I don’t think any company will look at that and say no to it.

Every organisation should’ve been doing it any way, but it almost becomes a stamp that everybody should have.”

Bennett hopes that campaigns like the GRC loosen the reins of “promotion and push”. The mere idea of not signing up would be counterproductive.

“You have to have the kitemarks to do business; once it becomes the standard, everybody does it, but we’re clearly got a long way to go and it needs to be maintained.”

Recruitment Matters May 2015 5

13/04/2015 16:51

Legal Update

PAYE reporting requirements By the time we have gone to print the Income Tax (Pay as you Earn) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2015 would have come into effect. These regulations require the ‘Specified Intermediary’ to report on all temporary workers not appearing on their Real-Time Information (RTI) report. So the reporting party will have to report on all temporary workers working through intermediaries such as umbrella companies, personal service companies, CIS intermediaries, partnerships, whether incorporated in the UK or overseas, and operating as sole traders. The regulations set out the information required, but this is further explained in HMRC guidance.

What information is required?

The report will contain the following: • Temporary worker details: Name, address and National Insurance number (or if the temporary worker does not have one, their date of birth and gender).

• Intermediary details: The reporting template lists six categories of intermediary (A to F); the reporting party must choose the most appropriate one. The report must also include: o Whether the intermediary has deducted PAYE and NICs for the temporary worker and reported this via RTI. o If the intermediary has not deducted PAYE and NICs: • the trading name, address and unique Who has to report? taxpayer reference number of the The Specified Intermediary is the party intermediary; with the contract with the end-user client.

• the gross amount that the intermediary This could be the employment business has been paid for the temporary worker’s but in longer supply chains it will be a services (inc. whether VAT has been vendor or managed service provider. charged) and the currency in which it Importantly, when acting as a second tier was paid (only £ sterling or Euros are supplier though the employment business acceptable for reporting purposes). will not have the reporting obligation itself, • The start and end date (if known) of each it will have to pass the relevant information assignment. up to the reporting party. Similarly, the intermediary through whom the When is the information required? temporary worker works will have to pass Reports must be submitted on a quarterly the required information over to enable basis, starting from 5 August 2015, reporting the reporting party to meet its statutory on the period 6 April to 5 July 2015. obligation.

Penalties will apply for failing to report or

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for repeatedly submitting incomplete or inaccurate reports.

What will this mean for supply chains?

REC expects that where intermediaries or 2nd tier suppliers fail to provide the full information required, or accurate information, they will lose contracts. The reporting party will not tolerate parties further down the supply chain failing to provide the required information on time.

We also expect that the reporting parties will reduce the number of intermediaries they permit temporary workers to work through whilst they will also impose more onerous audit provisions in their contracts.

Further information: REC Legal has produced a suite of materials for members including updated model contracts, factsheets which can be supplied to temporary workers and their intermediaries and a new data sharing agreement.

These are all available here: https:// www.rec.uk.com/legal-resources/ legal-guide/PAYE-and-NICs . Members can also access the legal helpline, Mon to Fri 8.30am to 5.30pm. HMRC advice is available here: https://www. gov.uk/government/publications/ employment-intermediaries-reportingrequirements

www.rec.uk.com 13/04/2015 16:51

Inspiration

Behind the scenes at the Institute of Recruitment Professionals James Goddard is the head of digital at Monarch Digital Recruitment, and was the top student in December 2014’s Level 3 Cert RP exams Congratulations on being top student. How has your year been so far?

It’s been a great year. I was over the moon to get the certificate, but to find that I had come out on top was a double boost.

What made you want to recruit for the digital sector?

It was something I came to in 2009 when the market was quite challenging. It was a great sector in London in terms of companies looking to strengthen their digital presence. Since then, I’ve made it my sole specialism.

Why did you choose the Level 3 Certificate in Recruitment Practice?

I manage a team now, and I have people come to me with questions all the time. I know a lot of information through experience, but I wanted to have the authority to say if things were correct or not in the eye of the UK’s leading body for recruiters.

And how did you find the course?

It was a lot more challenging than I thought. You can’t take a crack at that exam without some solid revision. But I think I’m a better recruiter because of it and I can now tell people whether something is correct or incorrect across the board. Whether it’s a question on diversity, or all the way to recruitment law, I feel confident enough to give solid answers.

Would you recommend the course?

It’s something I really would recommend to other recruiters.

You can use it in every part of your working day, and it’s really nice to have a professional certificate in recruitment.

Our industry is often seen as quite cowboy in behaviour, but courses like the certificate really swing things towards a more professional outlook. That can only be a good thing.

What I know Julia Robertson is the chief executive of Impellam Group Value hard work Hard work is the key to success in this industry. Obviously you need some skills and abilities. The reason I am able to do the job I’m doing now is because I have the experience, I understand recruiters, I know all the tricks – I invented some of them – and my judgement is pretty good.

Caring is key You have to care about customers, you have to care about candidates and you have to care about getting that mix right.

I’ve never lost that. If I go on a client pitch, I care about winning it. If I’ve got a staff member in a difficult situation, I care about the outcome and how they’re feeling. I think in a people business you need to care.

Add value The way forward is to provide fulfilling work for people. Fulfilled people, with a sense of purpose, are more productive and are better temporary workers for our customers, and our customers will be prepared to pay a decent margin and help us make an honest profit.

Taking the High Road We know our cost base very well, we’re very efficient, but we know where we can deliver a good service and where we can’t. It’s very important to us that we work with customers who treat their workers well. It’s important from an ethical perspective, but also from an economic one as well. If a customer treats our candidates well, they stay there longer and we don’t get the churn and level of replacement.

Take digital seriously Getting it right in a digital age is important, because the candidate’s voice can be heard. In blogs and in chatrooms that talk about brands, we do know that the majority of candidates get a poor experience from the recruitment industry. We’ve got to think about all those people who the recruitment industry doesn’t touch or place and examine how we’re dealing with that.

To hear the full interview with Julia Robertson, subscribe to the REC’s Scale Up podcast in iTunes.

To keep up to date with everything the Institute of Recruitment Professionals is doing, please visit www.rec-irp.uk.com

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Recruitment Matters May 2015 7

13/04/2015 16:51

Events and training

Not only is an apprenticeship in recruitment an opportunity to grow your workforce, it’s great for fostering young talent. We spoke with recruitment apprentice Moe Rahman from IG Education to find out what being an apprentice is all about Recruitment Matters: What’s your background?

Moe: Before I started I was in college, and had done a diploma in business, which was at level two. Before that, I was in secondary education. I was doing the core subjects, and the option I took was an engineering diploma, which I completed but after I finished school. However, I lost interest in engineering and wanted to go into the business side of things, which made me want to look at recruitment.

RM: How did you find being an apprentice?

M: At first, I thought being an apprentice would be like being in college, but a couple of weeks in I realised that apprentices do the same sort of work as everyone else. It doesn’t hold you back unless it intimidates you. You can do as much as an apprentice as your colleagues – you’re not treated like you’re some kind of school kid. You’re supported, and everybody is really helpful.

RM: What were some of the highlights of your apprenticeship?

M: I was surprised – you’d never think an apprentice would have so much

responsibility. Just because you’re an apprentice, doesn’t mean you’re held back and stuck in the same routine. I’m expected to do the same as everyone else. Within one or two weeks I was doing what everyone else was doing. I think doing it is better than sitting in a classroom and learning how to do it. An apprenticeship is a much better approach.

RM: How do you feel about a career in recruitment?

M: I think it’s different in terms of the sectors to choose from. If one day I decided I wanted to try something different, recruitment is an industry where change is possible. I’m constantly getting emails about job opportunities specialising in recruitment in other sectors. If you want to grow within a sector, you can.

RM: Would you recommend an apprenticeship to someone else?

M: I have recommended it to quite a few people already.

To find out more about taking on an apprentice in recruitment, visit https:// www.rec-irp.uk.com/career-development/ recruitment-apprenticeships

Building the best jobs market in the world The UK labour market has undergone significant change in the last decade and we believe this will only accelerate over the next few years.

The REC feels strongly that the UK’s dynamic labour market is a real competitive advantage and must be nurtured and protected.

To explore this, we invited a group of labour market experts to contribute to a

book of essays about how we can achieve our important ambition.

This has resulted in our latest piece of research: Building the best jobs market in the world: the expert view. We have 24 highprofile contributors including economists, trade unionists, academics, members of the House of Lords and business leaders.

Download your free copy at rec.uk.com/ expertview

Recruitment Matters The official magazine of The Recruitment & Employment Confederation Dorset House, 1st Floor, 27-45 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NT Tel: 020 7009 2100 www.rec.uk.com

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PAYE webinar available From 6 April, new HMRC reporting arrangements for non-RTI workers come into force. HMRC have confirmed the exact information recruitment agencies will be required to submit in their quarterly reports. In a welcomed move, HMRC accepted the concerns of recruiters and reduced the information it will require from intermediaries.

The REC, in conjunction with HMRC, has produced a webinar detailing everything agencies need to know about the new arrangements. Visit rec.uk.com/ legalwebinars to watch.

Did you know?

• The REC is the only recruitment body that has an in-house legal team.

• The REC Legal Services comprises three solicitors, four legal advisors, and one legal executive.

• Our solicitors have more than 10 years’ experience each.

• The REC legal offering includes the online legal guide that comprises 960 frequently asked questions, a model document library with 80 model documents and 20 factsheets, guides and tables.

• We now offer monthly legal newsletters, alternating every month: the six-page Legal bulletin, and two-page Legal bitesize.

• We work closely with the REC’s policy team, as well as HMRC, NEST Pensions and the Crown Commercial Service.

• There was a 32.5% increase in queries to the Legal Helpline in 2014.

• We respond to 80% of queries immediately, 95% within a day, and the remainder within four days.

To access the REC’s legal services, visit rec.uk.com/legal

Membership Department: Membership: 020 7009 2100. Customer Services: 020 7009 2100 Publishers: Redactive Publishing Ltd, 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP. Tel: 020 7880 6200. www.redactive.co.uk Publisher: Aaron Nicholls aaron.nicholls@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 8547 Editorial: Editor Michael Oliver michael.oliver@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7009 2173. Production Editor: Vanessa Townsend Production: Production Executive: Rachel Young. rachel.young@redactive.co.uk Tel: 020 7880 6209 Printing: Printed by Woodford Litho © 2015 Recruitment Matters. Although every effort is made to ensure accuracy, neither REC, Redactive Publishing Ltd nor the authors can accept liability for errors or omissions. Views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the REC or Redactive Publishing Ltd. No responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited manuscripts or transparencies. No reproduction in whole or part without written permission.

www.rec.uk.com 13/04/2015 16:52

World class staffing & recruitment software

Hays is a global business operating across 33 countries and communication between our 8,000 consultants, candidates and clients via the internet is a key business issue.

The latest Adapt system brings us multi-lingual capabilities, sophisticated integration options, and social media enablement combined with scalability through a web-based

Steve Weston | Group Technology Director | Hays

delivery model. This provides a platform to enable business options that historically could never be imagined, let alone realised…

We wanted the ability to define best practice through one global process but retain the flexibility to adjust for local functionality and data requirements. We chose Bond because they had the ability to configure and integrate to our other systems and to scale to our size with their Adapt platform. We are now seeing benefits of our investment where we have deployed. As we continue the further rollout, I expect to see extensive cost savings and productivity improvements over additional deployments.

Jonas Prising | Chief Executive Officer ManpowerGroup Americas

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09/04/2015 12:29

World class staffing & recruitment software

Hays is a global business operating across 33 countries and communication between our 8,000 consultants, candidates and clients via the internet is a key business issue.

multi-lingual capabilities, sophisticated integration options, and social media enablement combined with scalability through a web-based The latest Adapt system brings us

Steve Weston | Group Technology Director | Hays

delivery model. This provides a platform to enable business options that historically could never be imagined, let alone realised…

one global process but retain the flexibility to adjust for local functionality and data requirements. We chose Bond because they had We wanted the ability to define best practice through

the ability to configure and integrate to our other systems and to scale to our size with their Adapt platform. We are now seeing benefits of our investment where we have deployed. As we continue the further rollout, I expect to see extensive cost savings and productivity improvements over additional deployments.

Jonas Prising | Chief Executive Officer ManpowerGroup Americas

Global Vision Connecting people and processes everywhere.

Chosen by the world’s leading recruitment organisations for its multi-lingual and multi-cultural capabilities, Adapt enables global businesses to connect their offices and streamline operations via an intuitive cloud platform.

Feature rich specialist recruitment software, Bond Adapt, is 100% configurable and fully scalable for effective global deployment. By managing the entire placement cycle, Adapt improves productivity, providing global organisations with the right tools to maximise their business performance.

Contact us to find out how Bond Adapt can transform your business.

T +44 (0) 1903 707070 www.bondadapt.com

E sales@bond.co.uk

One world. One future.

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REC.05.15.031.indd 31

15/04/2015 15:39

Insight

Recruiters climb new mountain with latest data duty THE LATEST REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FROM HMRC MAY HAVE BEEN EXPECTED BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN RECRUITERS ARE GEARED UP FOR THEM, AS GRAHAM SIMONS DISCOVERED The beginning of the tax year on 1 April heralded a new requirement for recruiters to record details of every contractor or temporary worker they place — even those who are not paid via the agency’s own PAYE scheme.

The data collected must be sent to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in a new quarterly online report, with the first records due on 5 August 2015.

Ongoing consultations have been carried out between government and affected parties including recruiters and umbrella companies over the past year. So because the industry has been consulted, recruiters should be up to speed, right?

Not so, according to Barry Roback, a director at Anderson Group, provider of professional services to recruitment agencies and contractors.

“I think there is a lack of awareness,” Roback says. “There is no doubt there is a lack of appreciation within the industry. I think people are aware of it but people don’t necessarily understand it or the obligations of it. We are getting quite a few queries. There is a little bit of a ‘head in the sand’ attitude about it.”

In particular, Roback says: “I think smaller agencies will struggle.

“Let’s say you’re a smaller agency,” he continues, “and you have got 100 contractors out of which you don’t [directly] employ any of them. You have got 100 umbrella and/or limited company contractors out [working]. If those 100 come from 10 suppliers [such as] 10 umbrella companies, then you only have to collect data from 10 different sources on behalf of the 100 contractors. If those 100 come from 25 suppliers, then you’ve got to collect the data from 25 different organisations, and that ain’t easy.”

It may not be easy, but experts agree recruiters should move now to comply with the new rules.

Firstly, recruiters should ensure their contracts with contractors allow them to obtain the required information, urges Ben Grover, a solicitor and senior legal consultant at compliance consultancy Lawspeed. This in itself may be complicated, he points out.

“It may be they are one step removed from the party who they need the information from, if there is a second tier,” he says.

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“Similarly with an umbrella company or a PSC [personal service company], they are going to need to have provisions in place to make sure they can get the information.”

Then, he adds: “It is a question of getting the processes in place with a view to filling in the spreadsheet at the earliest opportunity, bearing in mind the first reporting period ends on 5 July.”

While reports may be handed in over the next month, Grover recommends turning them in as soon as possible. “There’s no reason if you have got the right processes in place why you should not do that,” he adds.

However, he concedes: “On a practical level it is going to be a pain to collect all this information.”

According to Roback, some recruiters will encounter problems because this kind of data is not immediately available. “This is not information that you would necessarily have collected when you

RECORDKEEPING AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FOR INTERMEDIARIES What you need to know Details that must be recorded and reported are: • The worker’s name • Date of birth • Gender or National Insurance number • To whom the payment has been made, such as the name of the limited company Deadlines and penalties for failing to comply: • Penalties for failing to comply start at £250 for the first offence, increasing to £1k for the third and every subsequent offence • First reporting period ends on 5 July • Reports due on 5 August

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Our opinion hasn’t changed, it’s strengthened engage a limited company as a contractor,” Roback told Recruiter.

However, he adds, “from now on every time you engage, collect that data right away”.

And Roback predicts some contractors may not be so keen to part with this personal information. “If the contractor won’t give them that information — and there are some obstinate contractors around — and the agency says ‘I want your NI number or your date of birth’, some of them are going to say ‘I’m not giving you that, that’s privileged information, you’re not entitled to it’.”

Another point recruiters must keep in mind is that their accounting systems will have to be able to “drill down to individual contractors over a given calendar period. It’s not calendar months, which is what most agencies would run on, it’s pay months —it’s the 6th to the 6th, so the 6 April to the 6 July”, Roback says.

Because of the penalties in place, recruiters may face a difficult decision around potentially turning away people already on their books, says Jacqueline McDermott, consultant solicitor at Keystone Law. “If they have got somebody who won’t give them the information, that puts them almost immediately in breach of these reporting requirements, for which there are penalties [see box, left, p24].

“It may well be they need to do an audit of their contractors, which will be a lovely job if they have got quite a lot of them,” she adds, with a touch of irony.

“It would be quite a burden on them to make sure they have some kind of checklist that they’ve got all the information that they need in respect of all of their contractors and everyone that’s not on PAYE etc.

“Where there are people who won’t give them the information, they really need to consider whether they want to continue dealing with them or to make it a requirement that they won’t deal with them unless they give them this information.

“If they are not getting this information it could provide quite costly for umbrella companies and recruitment agencies.”

GRAHAM SIMONS

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At PayStream, we’ve always understood the importance of a robust supply chain and have been advising agencies to work with Preferred Supplier Lists for a while now. And with legislation continually evolving, operating a PSL is now more important than ever.

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IAN WHADCOCK

Cover story: Internal mobility

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Finding talent on your doorstep INTERNAL MOBILITY IS BECOMING AN INCREASINGLY VALUABLE WAY FOR COMPANIES TO MAXIMISE THEIR TALENT POOL AND STRENGTHEN THEIR CAPABILITIES. HOWEVER, AS COLIN COTTELL DISCOVERS, GETTING STAFF TO APPLY FOR AN INTERNAL VACANCY CAN PROVE PROBLEMATIC

Getting your own staff to apply for your own internal vacancies can be a tough job. Take international recruiter Hays, who were faced with needing to fill a number of key senior vacancies in the US. You might think that this was an opportunity that Hays’ employees would jump at. However, according to Susannah Timlin, Hays’ group head of talent attraction and global mobility, the positions were filled only after the personal intervention of Hays’ chief executive.

“Alistair Cox sent a message to all 8,000 people in our business detailing the career opportunity, how they should go about applying and how the roles fitted the company’s long-term strategy,” Timlin explains. For a company CEO to intervene in such a matter might seem strange; however, Timlin says it was vital. “For staff who hadn’t been applying because they were worried about the response of their immediate boss, it gave them permission to apply,” she says.

Fear of the boss’s response is just one of a number of barriers to internal moves within organisations. In this case, the dearth of suitable internal candidates might conceivably have led Hays to the external market instead. However, the fact that its CEO chose to intervene in this way, tells much about the value that Hays, a company that fills around 90% of its experienced hires internally, attaches to internal mobility.

“It is important for us from a retention perspective and for a stability within our leadership perspective.

We can offer people a career, not just a job — that is absolutely part of our sales message when people come in at an associate level,” says Timlin.

A 2014 report by international talent management software company Cornerstone OnDemand, ‘Internal

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Recruitment in Europe’, backed this up, with 77% of employers saying internal recruitment was important to retain key talent and 60% that it improved employee engagement.

Andy Curlewis, director, brand, digital and comms at recruitment process outsourcing and talent consultancy, Cielo Talent, says that employees themselves are one of the biggest drivers of mobility. “Employees want to have the opportunity to work in different areas of the business and countries, a faster career path, and that means moving them around,” he says.

At the same time, he says: increasingly y “Organisations g gy need to move their good od people around because they can’t get enough good people externally.”

There are other reasons ons too. “There is evidence that shows that companies that promote their CEO from m within yield better results,” ults,” says Max Landsberg, senior enior partner leadership and talent consulting at Korn Ferry. ry.

For all these reasons,, as well as lower recruitment ent costs, and less time taken ken to inculcate new staff in n company culture, what’s t’s not to like about internal mobility? bility?

One company to recognise ognise the value of of internal mobility is international al credit rating agency agen ncy cy Standard & Poor’s (S&P). Over the last three years, years sincee it it launched its dedicated international internal mobility team, it has increased the proportion of its global hires filled internally from 23% to 35% in 2014, around 650 hires. This year, the figure is currently running at 45%.

“We were not sure what the right percentage was for

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Cover story: Internal mobility

internal mobility, but we felt 23% wasn’t the right number,” says Indy Bolina, senior manager talent acquisition & internal mobility at S&P. For Bolina, who summarises his five-strong team’s work as “building slates of individuals, who are potentially strong for internal positions”, the biggest benefit from hiring internally comes from “the positive impact on our employees”.

“It helps to motivate our employees knowing that internal opportunities exist,” he explains. “It is a very important subject for us, as it is for other organisations.”

Recognising the importance and value of internal mobility is one thing; making it happen is quite another, however. The Cornerstone OnDemand report found that despite organisations overwhelmingly recognising the value of internal mobility, more than half of companies (54%) filled less than a third of their vacancies from within their own workforce.

For Bolina, the ability to work collaboratively with others in the business — including S&P’s internal HR community, as well as data and analytics staff — is vital for the success of internal mobility.

This involves not only speaking to hiring managers “to find out who they know”, he explains, but also working with the company’s talent development function to identify and get information about high performers, including their career development plans, and their key skills. Bolina’s team participate in employees’ half-yearly talent reviews, and work closely with S&P’s HR business partners to gain further insight into individuals “we are interested in speaking with”.

Underpinning the work to build shortlists of internal candidates, is internal mobility’s involvement in S&P’s workforce planning “to gain an understanding of what are going to be the critical needs and numbers in the business”, explains Bolina. “From knowing the workforce plan, and where there are particular areas of focus, the internal mobility team can start preparing a plan of action,” he says.

Victoria Lawes, director of resourcing at

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HOW TO OVERCOME THE PROBLEM OF LINE MANAGERS’ RESISTANCE “Be transparent,” advises Martin Dangerfield, interim project delivery lead at staffing firm Arrow Group Global. “Managers just need a clear view of what the benefits look like. By default these people look great in the internal marketplace and on LinkedIn, so better for them to make an internal move than go to a competitor. Most people get that.”

Indy Bolina from Standard & Poor’s says: “We have educated all our business leaders, and the mantra of the company is we are talent exporters, the talent belongs to the organisation, not a particular manager. We have huge buy in from our senior executive team on this.”

“We can’t just expect people respond to requests [to apply for assignments] if there isn’t a culture of mobility within the organisation,” agrees Deloitte’s Victoria Lawes. “People need to understand how it works for both parties, and contributes to the success of both the business and the individual.”

Korn Ferry’s Max Landsberg says that when he was in charge of mobility at management constancy firm McKinsey, “the only way were able to move high potentials from team to team was to get company-wide commitment to a simple target. At any point in time, our goal was to have 10% of our high potentials on a short term transfer outside their home office”.

international professional services firm Deloitte, where around 500 staff are on internal assignments both in the UK and internationally at any one time, says that to be effective internal mobility needs to be about longterm succession planning rather than simply reactive.

“Particularly for those who are on track to higher leadership positions, we often think about strategic mobility hand-in-hand with moving them into potential leadership positions and offering that development for our people,” she says.

“We need to include mobility as part of our career conversations more broadly, and not just rely on individuals to come forward to move, but try to embed it in their appraisal and their career conversations,” she continues. “People really need to understand how mobility enhances their development, as well as meeting business needs.”

Curlewis says that as well as linking to the big picture, organisations need to get the nuts and bolts of internal recruitment right. This means “job listings available to everyone, agreed procedures on how they are communicated, how long they should be open and how you notify your line manager if you want to apply”. “There is a real process and infrastructure component to this,” he says.

This process includes having an attractive internal careers website, says Dan Curtis, internal resourcing manager at mobile telecommunications company at Three, where a new website was built “making it simple and easy for internal candidates to see and apply for positions”.

For Andy Rogers, organisational development change director at Sodexo UK and Ireland, providing

Indy Bolina

Dan Curtis

Susannah Timlin

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Cover story: Internal mobility

opportunities and a career path, which results in the firm’s employees feeling recognised and valued and as a result “truly engaged” in their career with Sodexo, is key to internal mobility.

“Spotting talent early on in their career and opening doors for them to realise their potential is crucial. We have people within our business who started with us as a cleaner and are now in managerial roles,” he says.

Curtis agrees on the importance of an engaged workforce. In practice, he says, this is “about providing them with the ability to build their goals working for you”. To facilitate this, last year Three ran a special career café attended by 700 people to help employees with their CV, to practise interviews, and advise on their personal brand and transferable skills. “The last time they had any career advice might have been back at school,” adds Curtis.

An initiative launched by Blue Arrow Group, part of staffing company Impellam Group, to provide better information and transparency about internal career paths has proved similarly popular among staff and boosted internal mobility, according to Jill Thornton, people and strategy director at the company. “We wanted to show people that they could have different career opportunities and experience different aspects of recruitment life without having to leave Blue Arrow,” she says. Staff can also see the skills they need to be able to demonstrate to progress in their career. Since its launch in 2013, the initiative has seen 88 members of staff take the next step in their careers.

Such examples are proof that companies that set out determinedly to boost internal mobility can achieve great things. However, according to Hays’ Timlin, “it is not always easy”. Not least of the challenges, say those working in internal mobility, is the resistance of managers, who don’t want to lose their best people to another part of the organisation.

“Managers Managers and leaders are incentivised to keep their team productivity high, so it is not in their best interests to offer up people for critical positions, or for development opportunities if it means losing them

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ARE RECRUITERS THE BEST PEOPLE FOR INTERNAL MOBILITY ROLES? “Not necessarily,” says Indy Bolina from Standard & Poor’s. “Internal mobility professionals are advising the business on the available talent within the business.”

This means having individuals “with good relationship management skills, and a broader understanding of talent. It is an additional skill set to what a recruiter would typically have”. This contrasts with the typical headhunter or recruiter, “who is driven by delivery and then moves on to the next project”, he adds.

from their team,” says Timlin. Those who do express an interest in moving internally can even end up feeling like traitors and cold-shouldered by their existing team, says Curlewis. (See box on p29 on how companies can overcome this resistance.)

Bolina at S&P says another obstacle standing in the way of greater internal mobility is the absence of sufficient “HR and careers-type data about employees”.

The company currently holds “significantly more data” such as talent reviews about its senior to mid-role staff, and as a result Bolina’s team do not cover more junior roles, though that is the aim.

The picture is further complicated, says Bolina, by the need to build up sufficient data on an individual’s performance to determine whether they are ready “to move into a stretch or challenging role”. Bolina says that in practice this means that an individual must be in a role for two to three years before they can be considered for a move.

It’s a further indication that while many employers recognise the value of tapping into the talent on their own doorstep, translating this into a coherent and successful strategy is complex, takes real commitment, and is not easily achieved.

Max Landsberg

Victoria Lawes

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HIRERS ARE INCREASINGLY INSISTING THAT RECRUITERS SIGN CONTRACTS HOLDING THEM RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGE, INJURY OR THEFT BY TEMPS, SO RECRUITERS NEED TO ENSURE THEIR INSURANCE IS APPROPRIATE AND WATERTIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR INCOME, WARNS COLIN COTTELL Checking the fine print of terms of business with a client can seem a long way from the pursuit of the bottom line for recruitment agencies.

However, if a temporary worker supplied by a recruitment agency damages a client’s property while on an assignment, it is exactly that lack of attention to detail that could come back to haunt them and threaten the agency’s finances and even its survival.

Insurance experts specialising in the staffing sector are warning of an increasing trend for recruiters to sign

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contracts with clients that do just that, however.

Peter Stoll, director of the recruitment division at insurance brokers Jelf Manson, says recruiters are at risk because hirers are increasingly rejecting the standard Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) model terms and conditions (T&Cs) under which “the recruiter accepts no responsibility for the negligent acts, errors or omissions of the workers supplied”.

In place of these standard contracts, Stoll says more and more recruiters are being pushed into signing clients’ own non-standard contracts: “Hirers say: ‘Look, I don’t like your terms and conditions, these are ours, sign up to them or you don’t do any business with us’.”

In agreeing to sign up to such terms, Stoll explains, recruiters typically agree to indemnify the hirer against any costs they incur as a result of a claim made against the hirer. It may seem incongruous and even unfair that a staffing company perhaps hundreds of miles way is held responsible for the actions of a worker just because it supplied that worker but, according to insurers, that is exactly the legal position.

“Legally, they are the contracting party with the client, and the client makes them responsible… If the hirer is sued, they want to pass it straight back down the line,” says Guy Cliffin, independent insurance expert specialising in the staffing sector.

Signing up to these terms is understandable, says Cliffin. “Agencies are under pressure from their sales people — ‘Look, we have won a great new contract, why don’t you sign it now and we can make loads of money?’ ” Cliffin and other insurance experts warn that such an approach can backfire on recruiters, potentially exposing their business to significant financial risk.

“The danger is that the recruiter accepts the terms and conditions without referring them up the line, creating a situation where the recruiter becomes responsible,” says Stoll. “If they start supplying under hirers’ terms, you could find that the policy is inadequate and therefore they are exposed to potentially very large claims that could damage the business. Sometimes, they could be refused because recruiters are signing more onerous terms.”

Faced with this situation, Cliffin says it is vital that recruiters check that their insurance is “watertight to pick up those liabilities”.

A further complication, says Stoll, is that “some insurance policies have T&Cs that say all business must be done using the REC model T&Cs unless agreed with the policy underwriter, so there is an obligation to tell us that you are accepting the hirer’s T&Cs”.

Tom Hadley, director of policy at the REC, adds: “Any financial incentive for agreeing to these [nonstandard] terms could be outweighed by the potential for losses further down the line. If recruiters accept liability for damage or theft by temp workers while they are on the client’s property, the agency will need to ensure that it has adequate insurance in place to reduce its exposure.”

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Cliffin says potential claims against an agency can be huge, citing a figure of £10m or more to meet fines imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Under a standard indemnity clause, a bank fined by the ICO could attempt to pass responsibility to the agency should an IT contractor supplied by the agency lose customer data, for example.

The trend for pushing recruiters into signing these non-standard contracts has been rising over the past four years, says Stoll. “It is being driven by hirers wanting to keep their own insurance costs more under control and trying to make recruiters more responsible for the actions of the workers supplied,” he says.

Stoll says that smaller agencies are particularly susceptible to this pressure. “They don’t have the wherewithal, the legal training or the background to negotiate with end clients,” he says. In contrast, “bigger recruiters have got a little bit more say because many have legal teams that negotiate contracts and try to get more onerous T&Cs removed”, he adds.

Another consequence, warns Stoll, is that the more business is done under the hirers’ terms, the higher the recruiter’s insurance premiums. This, in turn, eats into their margins. “The recruiter has to decide: ‘Are we making enough of a margin, or are we just buying turnover? Do we genuinely have the guts to walk away?’,” he says.

Stoll adds that premiums are likely to be particularly high where recruiters are supplying manual workers to sectors such as oil & gas and construction, where recruiters are generally responsible for the workers’ insurance.

Recruiters should increasingly expect battles with hirers over insurance, says Cliffin.

At the same time as some hirers are pushing for agencies to have unlimited liability for claims made against employers, “agencies want to limit their exposure to any claim, usually to £5m, through a limitation of loss indemnity clause [which caps the amount paid]”, he says by way of example. “The client is saying: ‘If we get fined £20m, we want to come after you for £20m’. Recruiters are exposing their balance sheets.”

Cyber insurance, which covers data loss, for example, is another area of growing contention, says Cliffin, with more and more hirers insisting that agencies have it. This is “ridiculous” and unnecessary, says Cliffin, who argues that end users already have the option to pass the financial liability on to the agency through a standard indemnity clause.

Claims arising from employment-type disputes, for

Rob Adams

Peter Stoll

“THE DANGER IS THAT THE RECRUITER ACCEPTS THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS WITHOUT REFERRING THEM UP THE LINE, CREATING A SITUATION WHERE THE RECRUITER BECOMES RESPONSIBLE” Peter Stoll

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example, where an agency worker is discriminated against and brings an action against the client, who says ‘fine, any legal cost we incur we will pass back to the agency’, are also on the rise, he says. “This is totally unreasonable, but it is what clients are insisting on. If they want the business, they will sign up to it,” says Cliffin.

Faced with growing pressure to sign contracts containing more and more onerous conditions, Rob Adams, development director at Dallas Kirkland Recruitinsure, which is part of Pen Underwriting, urges recruiters to “push back and insist on the use of your standard terms — as that will afford you the best protection”.

Adams explains: “In any claim, what needs to be established is who had direction, control and supervision when the accident occurred. This is normally clear cut where an agency is supplying labour under their standard terms of business, which makes the hirer fully aware of what their responsibilities are for directing, controlling and supervising temporary workers. Those words [direction, control and supervision] are fairly powerful in this market.” Some contracts also specify that the hirer is responsible for health & safety, adds Stoll.

Stoll says that recruiters in some sectors are being asked to sign contracts that are even more onerous than the non-standard ones. For example, in the IT sector in many cases, “the hirer is not only expecting the recruiter to deliver people but also an end product or a project deliverable”.

Stoll says this could lead to a claim for breach of contract. “Recruiters can find themselves with the wrong type of insurance, or insurance that doesn’t go far enough to cover the additional risk of this consultancy-type activity,” he warns.

Hirers are exercising their influence in other ways too.

“Some require that contractors, particularly those who work through their own personal service companies [PSCs], have their own separate insurance,” says Stoll.

Indeed, he says this can be a condition for getting the client’s business.

“The risk to the recruiter is whether they bother to check that the individual has the right policy, indemnity and exclusions, and paid the premium. If they rely on the PSC buying their own cover, and don’t check, they could find themselves having to deal with a claim from the hirer,” says Stoll.

“We always warn our recruitment clients ‘your name is on the contract to supply that worker’,”

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KEY ADVICE Push back against clients who ask you to sign non-standard contracts and insist on standard terms and conditions, engaging the help of your insurance broker if necessary If you are asked to sign non-standard terms, always check with your insurance broker to ensure that you have insurance cover that will meet any legal liability

Stoll continues. “And therefore in the first instance the hirer is going to come after you, and you are either going to have to deal with the claim or be very confident that your contract worker has bought the appropriate cover.”

Cliffin adds that not only are clients insisting that contractors are insured separately but also that they are auditing their agencies. “They are saying ‘of your list of 35 contractors, we want evidence that you know they are insured’.” This is a particular feature of the pharmaceutical market and it is spreading into IT, says Cliffin. “Clients want to make sure there is insurance behind the person at the end of the chain who made the mistake.”

With more and more recruiters under pressure from hirers who are determined to pass the responsibility for insurance down the line, the need for recruiters to ensure their insurance is fit for purpose and legally watertight has never been greater.

“IN ANY CLAIM, WHAT NEEDS TO BE ESTABLISHED IS WHO HAD DIRECTION, CONTROL AND SUPERVISION WHEN THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED” Rob Adams

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Closing date is: Friday the 29th of May For further information please email: rossgarvie@qualityps.net

0800 852 1060 | www.qualityps.net WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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Chase R2R the Agency for Recruiters Chase R2R place recruitment staff into recruitment roles, across sectors, throughout the UK. • Resourcers

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DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015

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14/04/2015 16:55

Movers & Shakers

ALEXANDER MANN SOLUTIONS: •Matthew Jaquiss rejoins

appointed Naveen Narayanan as global operations delivery director.

ATHONA RECRUITMENT: Dan •Shoben joins the healthcare

recruiter as finance director.

•

•joins the property staffing

BLAYZE GROUP: Laura Padgett

specialist as associate director.

CORDANT PEOPLE: The •industrial, catering and

commercial recruiter, part of nationwide recruitment giant Cordant Recruitment, has appointed James Orr as operations director for Cordant People Scotland.

•

DRAKE INTERNATIONAL: Paul Woodruff returns to the talent management solutions provider’s UK operation as director of strategic partnerships from Australia.

•

GINGER RECRUITMENT: Lee Phillips joins the multi-sector recruiter as head of engineering & technical recruitment.

•

HAYS: Chief financial officer Martin Abell will leave the international recruiter to join pharmaceutical company Clinigen Group this August in the same position.

A selection of vacancies from recruiter.co.uk

Lauren Thompson joins education staffing specialist Classpeople as compliance officer.

Thompson’s appointment follows changes to ‘disqualification by association’ legislation.

The Department for Education published guidance announcing ‘disqualification by association’ late last year and updated in February this year.

The rules effectively bar people from working with children under the age of eight if they live or work in the same household as someone who is disqualified from working with young children.

Thompson, who will head up compliance for all of Classpeople’s branches, joins from online course provider learndirect where she was a job coach.

GROUP GLOBAL: •TheARROWS international recruiter has

AVIVA: Following Aviva’s announcement of a planned acquisition of rival firm Friends Life, the enlarged business of the insurer has appointed Ceri Connolly as acting HR director UK & Ireland Life as part of a management restructure.

Current group HR director at Friends Life Kim Clarke takes on the role of HR integration director.

Your next move?

CLASSPEOPLE APPOINTS THOMPSON

the talent acquisition and management services provider as global head of executive search and research. In addition, George Vollmer is appointed senior vice-president, business and professional services and Kristin Thomas is appointed senior vicepresident, technology, media, telecommunications and retail.

•Mitchell is appointed to lead the HEIDRICK & STRUGGLES: John

executive search firm’s global healthcare and life sciences practice. Thomas Linquist joins as partner in the firm’s industrial team.

•

INTEGRA PEOPLE: Chrisy Waller

FIRESOFT Consulting IT recruitment consultant Relocate to Australia – beautiful waterfront offices in Sydney!

A$150k Sydney, Australia Recruiter Republic Recruitment consultant Accountancy, finance Milton Keynes Chase R2R Recruitment consultant Primary education, training £18k-£28k Nottingham

For more jobs, people moves and career advice go to

international construction firm as early talent attraction and selection manager.

• recruiter.co.uk/jobs • inhouserecruiterjobs.co.uk • internationalrecruiterjobs. com

•

MORRISONS: The supermarket chain has appointed current HR director for retail & convenience Clare Grainger as retail director.

•

executive search firm as country manager for Austria.

is appointed divisional manager for the technical recruiter’s new energy division.

NATIONAL LOCUMS: Simon Hill joins the medical recruiter as sales director.

PHAIDON INTERNATIONAL: Beat •Mueller joins the multi-sector

•

•Victoria Gribben joins the

recruiter as group contracts director for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region.

INTERQUEST GROUP: Former

founder of Harvey Nash David Higgins joins the IT staffing specialist as a non-executive director.

•Edwards joins the recruitment THE INVEST | R GROUP: Jay

industry financiers as finance director.

• joins the executive search firm KORN FERRY: Warren Hardy

NICHOLAS ASSOCIATES:

holding company that owns UK-wide recruiter Stafforce, and recruitment and consultancy firm Nicholas Associates, in the newly-created senior position of corporate development director.

vice president of strategic sales for its US operations.

•

•

RADLEY JAMES: Peter Hayward joins as the multi-sector recruiter as UK director of permanent recruitment, while Alex Wedderburn joins as director of global strategic accounts.

•

ROC SEARCH: Mike Morgan is •appointed US business manager to

ODGERS BERNDTSON: Samantha Foster joins as partner to lead the executive search firm’s new US aerospace and defence practice.

as Asia-Pacific sector head for energy, oil & gas within its Perth, Australia office. Bernard Godley joins as senior client partner in the executive search firm’s academic medicine practice.

PAGEGROUP: The global specialist recruiter has appointed Ruth Hancock as operating director for its engineering & manufacturing division.

• Walton is hired by the

• Buttinger joins the international

LAING O’ROURKE: Alexandra

RANDSTAD PROFESSIONALS: •Jennifer Gannon is appointed senior

PEDERSEN & PARTNERS: Josef

head up the executive search firm’s office in Austin, Texas.

•

SAXTON LEIGH: Ben Carter-Fraser joins the financial services recruiter as head of its risk division.

Email people moves for use online and in print, including a short biography, to recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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Bloggers with Bite

DATA ANALYSIS CAN LIFT RESOURCING AND TALENT Talent and resourcing data will one day bring us valuable insight into how employees and potential employees think and feel. Now we just need someone to take that first step am not the first to point out that, in the past 20 years, the delivery of recruitment has been transformed. Reliance on agencies has been broken up by a strong offering within the worlds of outsourcing and in-house, which have forced HR departments and business operations to change their view of how recruitment is done.

In recent years, recruiting via social media has made opportunities more transparent and accessible and, despite agency protests, it’s here to stay.

Networking always has been the best way to find a job — social networks just make the world smaller.

Is this enough? While social media potentially improves attraction, most recruitment functions and agencies work from role to role, day to day. This has been the case for some time.

Innovation and productivity are at the heart of the success of any business. Toyota reinvented the way cars were built through the Lean system.

Despite popular myth, this wasn’t done solely to cut costs and improve profits but instead to improve the customer experience by providing more reliable cars. It involved using data and input from the people on o the production line.

In the same way that t Henry Ford revolutionised revolut manufacturing 80 years previously, this Japanese Ja brand embraced data, d process and technology tech to transform the customer experience. experie Toyota became the envy of the industry, outselling out the Americans in their th own backyard.

Resourcing Resour now has an

I

Jon Hull is head of resourcing at construction and support services giant Carillion

TO POST YOUR COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

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opportunity to become fundamental, rather than an afterthought, when it comes to HR and business operations.

Two years ago, Harvard Business Review published research suggesting that resourcing and learning and development (L&D) in most organisations deliver the biggest bang for the buck, but are generally less well funded than other HR functions.

The advantages, generally, that resourcing and L&D have is an overview of the business. Resourcing is in a privileged position of being able to see what goes on at a macro level.

In addition, there is access to data and lots of it — whether from the internal systems, Google analytics (about website visits), and any advertising statistics and candidate satisfaction surveys. However, how many functions really tell this story?

Isn’t it about time that resourcing functions weren’t just filled with operational recruiters? What about people who make sense of the data and begin to help us tell our story to help resourcing become the function that revolutionises HR? There are opportunities. Royal Holloway and Bedford (University of London) are providing computer sciences courses intended to help companies analyse so-called Big Data. At a recent seminar I attended, there weren’t many HR representatives looking to fill the sandwich year (work experience) for their own departments. This is a golden opportunity — imagine if we could correlate employee engagement, talent and resourcing data.

This is a powerful mix that will bring us insight into how employees or potential employees think and feel. This can lift the resourcing/talent functions out of the transactional and into a different game.

What will it take? Well, what’s the saying? A 1,000 mile journey begins with a single step.

Resourcing now has an opportunity to become fundamental, rather than an afterthought, when it comes to HR and business operations What would you like to have a rant about?

Tell us at recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

In June: Find out who were the winners on the night at the 2015 Recruiter Awards for Excellence WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

15/04/2015 14:40

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