ZERO HOURS CONTRACTS – OUR VIEW

You may have noticed we stayed rather quiet when the subject of zero hours contracts first crept into the media spotlight back in August. It was a purposeful silence, as at that time, we simply felt the matter had been exacerbated and had unfortunately fallen victim to ‘band-wagon’ mentality from the majority of the public.

That isn’t to say that the arguments for and against weren’t valid of course – far from it – there just hadn’t yet been enough research behind it to present a balanced and measured argument…until now.

A new report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has revived the topic using meaningful results from a survey of more than 2,500 workers, dismissing previous statements that vilified this type of employment and called for restrictive regulation. Instead, its focus was on the overall understanding and implementation of these contracts, highlighting any areas for improvement for employers.

REC Director of Policy, Tom Hadley, rightly summed this sentiment up with a comment of his own: “Rather than seeking to add further layers of regulation and getting bogged down in a debate over different types of contracts, the focus for government must be to ensure that workers have the right skills and awareness to progress within the jobs market – whatever the type of contract they are on.”

The rules and regulation surrounding the flexible work environment can be a minefield for both employer and employee. Last month marked the two year anniversary of the introduction of Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) - which were also initially met with scepticism. Yet while recent reports show that the legislation incurred significant cost for recruiters, demand for temporary staff is still strong, with 96% of employers planning to increase or maintain their temporary workforce over the coming year.

Couple this with 60% job satisfaction of zero-hours workers (comparable to the average UK employee) and we can begin to understand the real benefits behind a contractually diverse workforce. It certainly gets the ACR seal of approval!

Latest research shows renewed confidence in UK jobs market

In my last blog post, I gave some predictions for the year ahead after a busy and insightful month working with both clients and candidates.

Now a recent survey conducted by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has revealed some promising statistics regarding the growth of the UK jobs market on the whole, which I’m delighted to see reflects our experiences here in Peterborough.

600 employers contributed to the report, which showed that overall business confidence is steadily building, with 57% of employers looking to increase their permanent workforce in the next three months.

It’s this type of good news that needs shouting about, particularly when there has been so much negativity surrounding the job losses within a number of high street retailers over the past few months.

This latest research demonstrates the ongoing resilience of the jobs market, as well as highlighting the areas that have a need for more workers.

Skills shortages in the Technical & Engineering and the Professional & Managerial sectors have incited a race for talent, with a third of employers looking to increase their use of temporary workers – the benefit of which ACR has long been champions of.

All of this bodes extremely well for us locally, as many of the area’s prominent businesses belong to these sectors. Myself and the team at ACR continue to be engaged with and responsive to the hiring processes of a number of clients within these industries, working alongside HR managers and directors to find the right temporary or permanent candidate with the right skills and attributes for their company.

If any of the REC’s findings sounds familiar to you, do let us know. We make it our business to keep up-to-date with the latest news and issues affecting employers, regularly using our own polls to ask some of the most pertinent questions. Please see our dedicated hirers section on the website for more information.

REC webinar

Some very interesting facts and figures were showcased during a webinar hosted by our industry body the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. Our recruitment partner Karen Dykes took part in the ‘event’ and was buzzing with both information and ideas afterwards.

The webinar itself was excellently executed. The Chief Executive Officer Kevin Green spoke and shared a lot of up to date information and forecasts from the industry.
Those taking part, and there were around 130 recruiters from across the country, were able to vote in real time on subjects Kevin was discussing, giving a brilliant snapshot of both opinion and what’s happening at a local level.

Karen is now investigating the possibility of how we could use webinars to host seminars along the lines of our regular employment law briefings – a great way to get even more people together without anyone having to leave their desks.

Much was made during the webinar about the added value agencies should offer their clients.

That’s something we’ve always believed very strongly in, and aimed to offer from day one of the business.

There were lots of suggestions made along the lines of being a ‘true partner’ and ‘investing in clients’. We believe that’s key to a successful working relationship. Unless you know your clients, their business, their ethos and their culture how can you find the right fit for their recruitment requirements?

In fact, we had a lovely compliment from a client the other day who said ‘ACR ‘gets us’. As an agency, we couldn’t provide the service our clients deserve if we didn’t invest time in understanding them.

There was talk of ‘widening the offering’, which included ideas such as training temps, providing testing and adding HR services. It was as the CEO Kevin Green talked through these things that we realised it read like a tick list of our services!

The whole team believes strongly in our brand and our offering but it was good to have some outside confirmation that what we do every day is exactly the kind of template that other agencies are now being encouraged to work towards.

Agency Workers Regulations

The Agency Workers Regulations have been on our radar for well over 18 months.

We’ve been working closely with our industry regulator the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to ensure we are fully versed with the regulations, what it’s going to mean for us and our clients and how we can remain compliant and help clients to be as well.

As a result of the relationship we have built up, the REC’s director of external relations Tom Hadley has agreed to come and speak at a special employment law briefing we’ve arranged with Hegarty LLP Solicitors.

This is a fantastic opportunity for HR professionals from Greater Peterborough to engage with a heavy weight industry expert – Tom is well known and respected across the country.

He’s going to discuss the practical and legal implications of the introduction of the regulations on employers and, hopefully, will have time to take some questions too.

Hegarty’s employment expert Martin Bloom will also be presenting at the event later this month, offering a legal spin on the introduction of the regulations.

We’ve always taken the REC stand – that these regulations, which will be enforced from October 2011, are likely to have far reaching implications on the demand for temporary workers. Our objective now is to help make their introduction as smooth as possible for clients.

Outplacement

Sitting in a room with a professional who’s just discovered their job – and therefore they – are redundant is not at the top of my list of enjoyable work moments.

But it is right up there on the job satisfaction scale.

Let me explain: being made redundant is on a level with a house move or relationship break up when it comes to stress-inducing life events. It may have come out of the blue. Financial concerns are often paramount. Self esteem takes a dive as does self confidence. All of a certain the future looks very uncertain.

But all of that can be turned around by arming the person with knowledge and advice – outplacement as it’s known.

We were called in by a company which was laying off 25 professionals.

Members of our team met all 25 on a one to one basis. We were able to discuss their individual needs, examine their skill sets, talk through options, give them advice about the local job market, help bring their CVs up to date and offer job search tips.

The feedback we received suggested every single one found the interview valuable and felt much more positive about the future than they had before the process started.
We couldn’t place them all in jobs immediately but we could ‘empower’ them to coin a 1990s phrase – and that’s a good feeling – for them and for us.