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Monday 19 July 2010

Work shy students? It’s a myth

Guest blogger ACR Business Coordinator Claire Latham

It’s holiday time – great news for your staff probably not such good news for you. If your office is anything like ours, despite the best laid plans, we often find ourselves with a spell over schools holidays where we’re more short handed than we’d like to be.

We regularly stop the gaps, as it were, with students.

We get a lot of university students, and post A’ level students, registering with us in the run up to the summer holidays. Most are looking for short term work either to pay off student debts or maybe to fund a summer holiday.

For them, temporary work has many benefits. First and foremost, it pays! Secondly, it’s a great opportunity to get a peek inside a sector they may be interested in working in in the future. Thirdly, it looks good on their CV to have work experience under their belt.

For you, as an employer, taking on temporary staff over the summer spell can pay real dividends.

We have temps on our books able to cover a huge range of disciplines – from simply answering phones and taking messages, to meeting and greeting, to carrying out detailed project work or overseeing a department in the manager’s absence. That means there’s no need for a department to be partially closed, or on a go-slow, over the summer.

Temps can be taken on for as long or short a period as you need. One client found their two receptionists had holidays which overlapped by a day. We were able to provide them with a temp to cover that one shift.

We find students are often given excellent feedback by companies – they’re keen to make a good impression with a view to further work in the future, they’re new to the business so often able to inject something fresh to the mix and, if they’re forward-thinking enough to register with a recruitment agency, it tends to mean they’re not shy of hard work!

Friday 9 July 2010

Student support a pleasure

We were pleased to be able to support Peterborough Regional College’s student awards again this year.

The ceremony – a rather glittering affair – is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the achievements of students.

Karen Dykes from ACR attended the event to mark our sponsorship of the Best Business Student award which was won by Chris Burling.

With budgets tight across the board, this kind of support of local activities can often fall off the list of business’ priorities. We’ve always taken the view that when times are tough, it remains a vital investment in the future – both for us and for the students who deserve a hand up the ladder.

Seeing the pride with which they received their awards was, Karen said, ‘heartwarming’.

The students were treated to some inspirational food for thought too from special guest Ade Adepitan. He survived polio as a younger and now has a career as an international wheelchair basketball player and TV presenter.

Definitely a worthwhile event to be involved with – and an enjoyable one to attend.

And just a quick mention: We’re a team here at ACR and we’re all involved in many different aspects of the business. With that in mind, although this is officially ‘my blog’, I thought it might be good to give others the chance to speak out – in a ‘guest blogger’ role. So, over the coming weeks, others will be penning some words for this page, sharing their thoughts and ideas. They’ll get a name check so you know who they are.

Tuesday 6 July 2010

And now you can listen too….

We’ve worked with Martin Bloom from Hegarty LLP Solicitors over a number of years. He’s incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to employment law and a popular presenter at our regular Employment Law Briefings.

Martin was one of the key speakers at our latest Seminar on the subject of the Agency Workers Regulations, giving an in depth look at the way the Regulations are likely to be interpreted on a legal platform.

Martin’s insight was, as ever, thought provoking and invaluable.

For those who couldn’t write quickly enough to take note of everything Martin said, and those who weren’t able to attend, please click here to listen to the podcast of Martin’s speech.

Thursday 1 July 2010

Agency Workers Regulations: reassurance from REC

An early start for us all – but what a worthwhile one!

We welcomed Tom Hadley, Director of External Relations at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, to talk to around 80 HR professionals from Peterborough businesses about the Agency Workers Regulations in October 2011.

The breakfast seminar was held in conjunction with Hegarty LLP solicitors with their employment law expert Martin Bloom giving a comprehensive overview of where companies are going to stand legally.

Tom then talked through the history of the introduction of the regulations right through to the lobbying that the REC did in the run up to the election.

After a spell of inactivity during the election campaign, the new coalition Government is now engaged in pinpointing the finer details of the regulations – and Tom and the REC are involved in those discussions.

Tom was keen to emphasise the reality of the new legislation. “Employers must remember that fundamentally a lot of things are going to remain the same. You can take on temporary workers when you need them and get rid of them when you want to.
“We are also pleased that about 70 per cent of what we have pushed for has been accepted as part of the regulations.”

We were pleased to hear Tom highlight the part agencies like ours will play over the coming months. It was also reassuring to hear him say that he felt the temporary market wouldn’t suffer despite the introduction of the regulations – one of the biggest industry fears.
 

Anne Corder Recruitment 2008-2012. All Rights Reserved.