Two Views from the Top
Tue, Sep 23rd, 2008
Kevin Green Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
The recruitment industry is one of the largest industries in the UK, contributing around £27 billion to the national economy. However, it does not always punch its weight as effectively as it might, argued Kevin Green at the September meeting of the Recruitment Society, held at Bernard Hodes Group.
The industry employs 100,000 people and places 1.4 million people in temporary jobs and 800,000 in permanent jobs in the UK. Its contribution to the flexibility and dynamism of the UK economy is incalculable. The temporary jobs market dwarfs the market in rest of Europe. Yet its voice is not always heard. It has a lobbying and campaigning facility, but the two have often been confused with the result that people often ask, "What is the Message?"
The nature of the challenge should not be underestimated, argued Kevin Green. REC has 3600 corporate members, which represents only 50% of the industry, and has some way to go before it can say it can truly represent the majority of the industry. Perhaps the key to meeting the challenge is to look carefully at the needs of employers. He could build on his experience at the Post Office, which had 165,000 employees turning over £7.2 billion and use to view the REC from a different angle. He felt that his contribution would be to bring an employer perspective, in order to bring a sharper focus to its activity.
As a major employer at the Post Office, what resources did we need? We needed to understand
how employers compete • why agency work was becoming commoditised and how to recognise real added value in the sector • how to attract talent • detailed segmentation of the labour market • where skills shortages genuinely existed and where they were just perceived
The Human Resource function must be seen to be adding value to an organising. It must see itself as a function to be procured. The CIPD has recognised and is about to undertake some research on procurement, organisations which offer HR services and how this fits in with the recruitment function.
REC has been active in a number of areas: • Economy research - producing a monthly report on jobs in conjunction with KPMG • Reviewing the sector size and segments. It is expected that the market will dip to £26 billion in 2009 but then bounce back to £27 billion in 2010. • The Agency Workers Directive. • Welfare to work scheme. The REC has encouraged private sector involvement, including the NFP sector • The VAT concession negotiations • Protection of vulnerable workers. • Trying to get agencies to work together • Developing an IT outsource group: this market is currently worth £750 million per year and is growing rapidly.
The REC is now proposing to pursue three key things:
1. It wants to be the voice of the whole industry. In doing so, it can then relate more effectively to government, with a view to keeping regulation off the agenda 2. It needs to work harder to spread a more professional approach across the industry. This needs to include the message about the importance of ethics and standards and the industry. There will be more policing of members, and scrutinising of activities, including, for example, their websites 3. It needs to do more work on developing training and development programmes. There are currently 6000 individual members, many of whom would look naturally to REC for help in this area.
Additionally it needs to review its entire spectrum of activities, to ensure that it is delivering world class services.
John Thomas International Freelancers Association
The IFA is about to have a formal launch at the beginning of October. Freelancers have some representation in specialist sectors at a national level but many are now working on international contracts and have complex contractual and other arrangements: these people are not adequately represented by any association. Others are not even represented at national level by specialist sector associations. What members are being offered is specialist information about contracting: advice on contracts, what kind of operating organisation might suit individual contractors, and how financial arrangements might work. Both contractors and agencies can be members. IFA have huge discounted insurance bundled packages (typically 50% below market rate) to enable Freelancers to be legal and compliant. One of the main features of membership is what is known as "Job Diamond". This allows members to input information about themselves and to present themselves in a way which they consider the most appropriate to market themselves. In this way members, for example, have a time effective way of searching for and securing new work before an existing contract comes to an end. A specific benefit to Agencies is when they post their Jobs, these are pushed to Freelancers PC's, Blackberries and iPhones immediately. IFA will also have a lobbying facility: a topical current issue of great concern to contractors is the Staff Hire Concession, which is being phased out, with VAT being chargeable on both wages and services when introduced. They have an on line eNews and eVoice to keep the freelancer market informed. IFA have secured 20,000 registered users in the first four weeks of launch and over 2000 registered members.
