Dear Subscriber,

Lifting the lid

The last six months or so have been testing times for the world of recruitment; restructures ending in redundancies and a general air of uncertainty have made for a very precarious market. My contacts within the world of HR & Business tell me that the tactics from agencies are becoming more and more aggressive. This very fact underlines my reasons for continuing with this series of articles. I want organisations and the recruiting professionals within those organisations to understand 'why' these tactics are employed and what they can do to combat them.

Hopefully, within the next 6-12 months these tactics will die away as the market once again returns to its buoyant state. We hope our stance on providing a professional, niche service combined with a relationship building approach to our business development, stands us in good stead to grow. I would appreciate any thoughts you may have on the tactics being used and will gladly provide you with a free 1 to 1 discussion if this assists. Following on from my last article, this month we discuss:

Trade Secret No 4: What should I expect from my recruitment partner?

Hopefully with the trade secrets discussed in previous newsletters, you can now start to weed out the ‘Sales’ agencies and hopefully it will also help you pick a recruitment partner for your business or for your career.

A quality recruitment partner understands you and your business. They meet you, learn about your culture, your businesses aims and goals, the type of person you are looking for and then gain a thorough understanding of the vacancy.

They advertise, interview, give the candidate your company name (!!!) and then present you with a shortlist.
They do not: Call you every Friday, send you random emails, send you a dozen pointless CVs of candidates who do not even know their CV is with you…. and then bill you a fortune.

Your recruitment partner briefs candidates prior to interview, gives candidates feedback after the interview and then finally they handle the offer stage. They discuss counter offers, any concerns and finally organise a start date. On the start date they phone you, check that all parties are happy, and then finally invoice you the agreed fee investment.

If your recruitment partner does not do these things, ask yourself why? Do you make a habit of accepting the norm? Do you question the service? Many people don’t because they don’t know what service they should expect. NOW YOU DO!

With the economy as it stands, value for money is vital, utilise these tips please.

Should you have any questions relating to “Why...” then please email me direct.

Mark Ions - Managing Director

Each month we run a series entitled 'HR Doctor' where we invite our HR Consultant, Fiona Ward from our HR Business Services Division to answer a series of HR related questions.

Question: With the recession biting, my company has asked me to look at ways HR could save the business money. I have read about lays offs or short time working, what does this entail and how do I implement it?

Answer: Lay off is when employees are not provided with work by their employer and the situation is expected to be temporary. Short-time working occurs when employees are laid off for a number of contractual days each week, or for a number of hours during a working day. They too are regarded as laid off. Both are usually without pay.

Whether an employer can do this largely depends on whether or not it has “lay off” or “short time working” clauses within its Terms and Conditions of Employment. The clause must be current and clearly worded. The employer should also consult with their workforce as soon as possible about the potential of lay offs and give as much notice as possible.

I am assuming that you do not have the above required contractual clause? There is an option available to you. Both the company and employees may agree to alter the employment contract terms so that the lay-off is not a unilateral act by the employer but by mutual agreement. This needs to be done carefully as an Industrial Tribunal will look at the impact of the short time working and how the situation was handled.

Finally in terms of pay, employees who are laid off may be entitled to a statutory guarantee payment from the employer. Payment is limited to a maximum of five days in any period of three months and the daily amount is subject to an upper limit which is reviewed annually. On days on which a guarantee payment is not payable, employees may be able to claim Jobseekers Allowance and should contact their local Jobcentre about eligibility.

To discuss your restructuring requirements or any HR Business Service requirements and the potential of obtaining Business Link funding for your project, please call 0191 438 7989 or 0113 243 0900. Alternatively, please check out our dedicated HR Business Services website page.

To read Fiona's profile please click here.

Written exclusively for 'HR News & Views':

A couple of thought provoking issues for consideration in this month’s newsletter.

It has long been the case that Employment Tribunals will take a fairly strict approach to whether or not a Claimant has brought a claim for unfair dismissal within the usual 3 month time limit for lodging such complaints. Section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the Tribunal the discretion to extend the time limit for bringing a claim if it was “not reasonably practicable” for the claim to have been issued within the time period, as long as the Claimant submits it within a reasonable period thereafter.

Recently a Tribunal has concluded that 88 seconds was too late where it was clear that it could have been submitted earlier. However, in Royal Bank of Scotland – v – Bevan the Claimant received a letter informing him that his appeal against dismissal had been turned down only 5 hours before the 3 month time limit expired. He did not contact Solicitors until the following day; and they did not issue the Claim until a week later. Nevertheless the Employment Appeal Tribunal concluded that it had not been reasonably practicable for the Claim to have been submitted in time since the Claimant was entitled to wait for the internal procedure to be completed. Equally, in Ashcroft – v – Haberdashers Aske’s Boys School the EAT again suggested the Tribunal should consider the period between the conclusion of the appeal and the expiry of the 3 month time limit in considering whether it was reasonably practicable for the Claim to be submitted in time.

These decisions appear to be an extension to the general rule. They are based on the fact that the Statutory Dispute Resolution procedures encourage employees to utilise, and to await the outcome of, the internal procedures before contemplating a claim.

Given that the Employment Act 2008 repeals the Statutory Dispute Resolution procedures it remains to be seen whether this more relaxed approach to the 3 month time limit would be maintained or whether the absence of the requirement (in order to protect any claim for compensation) to pursue the internal procedure to its end will now diminish.

The second point arising from this case was a re-statement by the EAT that were claims submitted late because of the failure by the Claimant’s legal representative, it is never the less the Claimant who suffers. Actually, at the end of the day, that suffering will be passed onto the recalcitrant Solicitor whose insurers will no doubt pick up the responsibility in his or her stead. 

Jonathon Stokes is Head of Dispute Resolution at local firm, Gordon Brown Associates. He can be contacted on 0191 230 8103, or visit the web site www.gordon-brown.co.uk

As always, following on from our last edition we received some very interesting, topical questions from businesses relating to reward and benefits so we put them to an expert. Dave Gibson is an Accountant and Business Advisor for Blu Sky LLP Chartered Accountants and answers as follows:

I’ve received a new tax code notice. What do I do and how do I check it’s correct?

During January and February your employees may get a PAYE Coding Notice from HMRC confirming a new tax code for the tax year 2009-10. The new tax code will be used by the employer or pension payer from 6 April 2009 to make sure the correct amount of tax is paid and employees receive the tax allowances and reliefs to which they are entitled.
Not everyone receives a Coding Notice.

The Coding Notice is for the employee to keep, as HMRC will also tell the employer or pension payer what the new tax code is.
Further information explaining the coding notices, allowances, reliefs and deductions can be found on the HMRC website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/tax-codes.htm.

BLU SKY LLP are Chartered Accountants focused on providing small businesses and self-employed people in the North East of England with personal, high quality accountancy & taxation services. More information can be found at www.bluskytax.co.uk

As promised, this month we are going to be focusing on the area of Training and looking at typical salary levels for its many sub-divisions! We have bracketed the myriad of Training titles into three areas to summarise and also to prevent eye strain when reading this section – namely Officer, Manager and Head of Training.

Before we move on to that though, we are pleased to announce that we are in the process of undertaking our most comprehensive salary survey to date with the help of Newcastle University student Amina Sheretova. Amina will be working with Exclusive Human Resources over the coming weeks as part of her Masters programme and will be thoroughly reviewing our comprehensive database of HR candidates across the North of England. We hope to have the definitive Exclusive Human Resources Salary Survey 2009 completed for the beginning of April, so in order to receive a copy hot off the press, please forward your details to gareth@exclusivehr.com

So, onto the area of Training and Development!

From the latest data drawn from across the North of England, the following average salaries were found:

Training Officer
Range: £19,500 - £25,000
Average: £22,450

Training Manager
Range: £24,000 - £38,600
Average: £30,770

Head/Director of Training
Range: £50,000 - £61,500
Average: £54,700

Next month we will look at L&D specialists but for more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Gareth Harrison – Senior Consultant

Can an average guy really become Double Commonwealth Champion, Olympic Finalist and be one of only 7 people ever in world swimming history to break the minute barrier for his event?…. Chris Cook & Simon Hartley have shown it is possible and have the principles that took Chris from an average regional swimmer to the very top of his game.

Simon and Chris began working together in 2001 when Chris (swimmer) was referred to work with Sport Psychologist Simon to help tackle competition anxiety. Unbeknown to the pair they were about to embark on a 8 year journey that would see them develop a blueprint for success that they strongly believe can applied to all aspects of performance.

Exclusive Human Resources caught up with Simon and Chris to ask about the exceptional work they’ve done together and what’s next for the pair?

Chris, what do put your career successes down too?
Its’ difficult to pin-point one single component, the work that Simon and I did together involved developing a 360 degree approach to how I achieved my goals and dreams. I changed my behaviour, attitude and focus, asking some fundamental questions that are key to any level of success. I had to ask myself ‘what was I doing day to day to contribute to achieving my dreams’. When I started to ask this question we realised that my working week involved 60% of work that was not relevant to where I wanted to go, so began to organise and prioritise the essential work load relevant towards my goals.

So, Simon, do you feel that these principles that helped Chris can be applied to other fields or businesses?
Absolutely, when you go through a journey and understand how to learn from every single experience, good or bad, you begin to build up a very clear picture of exactly what it takes to achieve goals and dreams. I’ve worked, for several years now, with successful sportsmen and women, applying the very same principles to the work that I now do with businesses, teams and individuals. The results speak for themselves and both Chris and I are excited to help businesses to become truly World Class.

Explain to us the nature of the venture that you two are embarking on?
Chris and I are aiming to help businesses engineer and harness optimal performance using the seven principles to success. ‘You Can Be World Class’ is the business at the heart of this venture and we are working with companies big and small to help them flourish and explore their full potential. We believe that achieving World Class status comes down to a matter of choice and it is these choices that we aim to explore with interested customers.

‘You Can Be World Class’ has funding sources available for the work that they do and if you would require more information please contact chris@youcanbeworldclass.com

Learning & Organisation Development Manager (1064) - £40,000 - Newcastle

We are delighted to be recruiting a Learning & Organisation Development Manager for a leading, national not for profit organisation in an exciting period of growth and development... (read more)

HR Manager (1059) - £35,000 - £45,000 - Sunderland

Exclusive Human Resources are proud to be working with one of the region's major public sector organisations on an important and immensely exciting vacancy.

The client in question, well regarded internationally as well as locally, is seeking to recruit an experienced, Chartered member of the CIPD to join its innovative and forward thinking HR team in the role of HR Manager... (read more)

To review all of our current vacancies please click here or call 0191 438 7989 or 0113 243 0900

Yorkshire office opens:

On January 5th Exclusive Human Resources opened its doors for the first time to the Yorkshire region. We are very proud to be based out of the UK's greenest office at Thorpe Park, Leeds and bring our unique blend of innovative HR recruitment & HR business services to the professionals of Yorkshire. If you have any HR requirments for your company or indeed, you have any friends looking to change jobs in this region, please email us or call 0113 243 0900.

New website...launched:

Packed with new features including 'Meet the team', archives of past newsletters, a full review of our HR business services & HR recruitment services divisions and a new easy navigation system for our latest vacancies - please check it out at www.exclusivehr.com