Dear Subscriber,

Lifting the lid

Question: Recruitment consultants – they are all no better than Estate Agents, too expensive, not interested in my company and only out for a quick buck... fact or fiction?

Answer: Fiction, not all recruitment consultants are the same; the fact is there are some very genuine ones out there. Unfortunately, it’s the majority that spoil it for the minority, meaning we are all tarred with the same brush!

In this series of articles, I will attempt to ‘lift the lid’ on the world of recruitment for you, hopefully equipping you to weed out those that are genuine, from those that are simply a ‘bums on seats’ service.

A brave man, I hear you say, why would he want to give away all the trade secrets? The truth is there are no real trade secrets for those of us that provide a genuine and honest recruitment service. The trade secrets belong to the sales agencies purporting to be genuine recruitment consultancies!

Trade Secret No 1: Why do I always get calls on a Friday afternoon?

The simple answer to this is that the majority, (and I do mean the majority) of recruiters are targeted on the number of sales calls they make each month. Depending on the specialism of the recruiter (admin, finance, IT etc) they will be asked to make anywhere from 100 to 150 calls per 4 week period. Now if you multiply this by the number of consultants in some of the larger agencies, this is why you get so many calls, every day. Fridays are a particularly bad day for those calls due to the fact most consultants need to make the weekly target in order to hit the monthly target. So quite often, that quick 3pm call enquiring about vacancies is nothing more than a KPI achieving necessity for the consultant.

Exclusive Human Resources are driven by a determination to provide the best service in the market to our clients and candidates alike and not by meaningless targets.

Next month: Protecting your privacy – “The consultant won’t tell me who the client is, why?”

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

Mark Ions - Managing Director (0191 438 7989)

It would have been great to report to you the immediate implementation of the Employment Bill, the repeal of the Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures and their replacement with a procedure more akin to the old ACAS process. Alas not. The current best guestimate of when we may get this enacted is now April 2009. Uncertainty will remain in the meantime.

As will the position in respect of retirement and age discrimination pending various appeals in cases such as Seldon (the compulsory retirement of a partner in a Law firm) and the Heyday challenge, concerning the lawfulness of the age regulations allowing compulsory retirement at 65.

In the meantime, we have the decision of Rainbow –v- Milton Keynes Council. In this case, a school placed an advert seeking a teacher stating that the vacancy ‘would suit candidates in the first five years of their career’. Mrs R, who had a mere 34 years’ teaching experience and therefore by any stretch of the imagination was not in the first five years of her career, applied for the post.

The school probably (certainly) got the procedure wrong. Rather than providing Mrs R with an application pack, it told her to submit her application by way of letter. Further, whilst being alerted to a possible contravention of the Age Regulations, and having revised the advert, the school did not change its’ belief that it needed to keep the cost of the replacement teacher down, and therefore had to recruit someone within the salary level – and hence experience – it had originally envisaged.

Mrs R had her application for the post rejected. She brought a claim.

The Tribunal found that the school had not proved that there was a good reason for not short listing Mrs R; and that their letter of rejecting concealed the true reason why she had not been invited, that of cost; she would have been eligible to receive a far greater salary for the post than the school had earmarked for it.

Nevertheless direct discrimination was not made out because had Mrs R, or someone of her age, had five years’ experience or less, they would have stood an equal chance of being short listed. In other words she had not made out that she had been treated less favourably on the ground of age when compared to an identified or hypothetical comparator.

Nevertheless indirect discrimination was made out. The decision to appoint someone with five years’ experience or less was a provision, criterion or practice which, although applied equally irrespective of age, would nevertheless put someone of Mrs R’s age at a particular disadvantage compared to other persons.

Was this in itself justified? On the facts, it was not. Insufficient information had been provided by the school to establish that the budgetary position was as it said; or that it had assessed finance against the effect of an otherwise age discriminatory provision, criterion or practice.

The case represents an interesting example of how careful one must be, even when apparently legitimate concerns may be translated into illegitimate PCPs. Further, the principle doesn’t apply only to the older candidate but may equally apply to the younger candidate. A requirement that, for example, the person have 25 years’ experience would clearly disadvantage younger candidates. It will be necessary for the prospective employer to justify that kind of criterion in exactly the way that the school should have done in Mrs R’s case. The case may have turned on its own facts but the principles are plain for all to see.

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

Clearly, a vital component of getting any piece of HR recruitment right is matching a salary to the job role. In order to help match candidate expectations to employers’ perceptions, we are pleased to provide an up to the minute salary survey based on current information from our database of HR specialist candidates in the North East and Cumbria.

This month we are focusing on HR Advisors and HR Officers. Perhaps more so than any other HR job title, this sub-section tends to bring the greatest variation in salary from the average, as seen below.

Hopefully, this will help to guide employers and candidates alike as to the current market rate at this level. As ever, HR job titles can count for very little but the following offers a guide so that when someone moves on from your organisation, you can seek to replace at the correct salary level!

Range: £16,450 all the way up to £35,000

Typical: £26,150

Benefits can include: Pension, bonus, flexitime, car, phone, health care, laptop and share schemes

Next month we will focus on HR Managers.

For an informal discussion on either your own salary or your HR departments salaries, or to receive our current complete salary survey, please call 0191 438 7989 or email us directly.

Gareth Harrison - Senior Consultant (0191 438 7989)

Following on from our last edition we received some very interesting, topical questions from readers relating to reward and benefits so we put them to an expert. Dave Gibson is an Accountant and Business Advisor for Tax Assist and answers as follows:

Question: I have been called for jury service, which will last for approximately 2 weeks. Do I have any entitlement to claim for the loss of my earnings?

Answer: Irrespective of whether your are self employed or employed, all jurors are entitled to claim a small maximum daily allowance for loss of earnings over the period of jury service, which is dependent on the number of hours and period you will be acting as a juror. You may also be entitled to claim a daily allowance for subsistence and travel costs.

If you are self employed, you will have to provide the court with some evidence of the loss of your earnings. Details of the rates payable can be obtained from the Crown Court where you have been asked to attend, or on the www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk website. 

If you have any questions you would like put to Dave for October's edition please email us directly.

TaxAssist Accountants are the accountancy and tax service for small business. They are the largest national network of accountants, looking after some 24,000 businesses. Based in North Shields they can be contacted on 0191 258 7676. 

Each month we will be running a series entitled 'HR Doctor' where we invite our partner HR Outsourcing specialist, Deminos, to answer a series of HR related questions.

This month, Deminos Director Louise Atkinson answers:

What are the six potentially fair reasons for dismissal?

1. Conduct (e.g. where an employee has been consistently late for work without good reason over a period of time and without improvement despite warnings).

2. Capability/qualifications (Where an employee is unable to perform his or her job satisfactorily through incompetence or ill health (caution should be taken when dealing with ill-health issues as there is an overlap with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the employer could make reasonable adjustments to enable an employee to continue in the job instead of dismissal).

3. Redundancy (the closure of a business or a reduction in demand for a typical worker either generally or in the place where the employee was employed).

4. Contravention of a statutory requirement (Dismissal because the employee could not continue to work without contravention of a duty or restriction imposed by statute is another potentially fair reason for dismissal e.g. where a commercial driver is dismissed for losing their driving licence).

5. Some other substantial reason (e.g. dismissal as a result of a key customer’s objections to the employee).

6. Retirement The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force on 1 October 2006. These regulations provide that employers must implement planned retirements and follow the duty to consider procedure i.e. there is a set procedure to be adopted by employers when their staff reach retirement age.

Deminos offer tailored solutions to meet employers needs in all sectors of business and commerce. This month they are offering a free healthcheck. For a limited period a Deminos consultant will come and visit and run through a 'compliance healthcheck' on your North East based business. Call now on 0191 460 1111 to book and quote reference number EXHR17 

Training Consultant

Our client has a rare opportunity for a full time training consultant to join their growing business. The role will involve training design consultancy, writing training materials and running experiential training. Obviously with a position such as this, the training will be designed and delivered for a range of client companies across different industries.

To read all about this exciting opportunity please click here or to review all of our current vacancies please click here or call 0191 438 7989

With the recent publication of the new 2008/2009 events programme for the North East of England CIPD branch, we are again proud to be sponsoring the programme and key events.

This month:

Building HR Capability; CIPD Chief Executive - Jackie Orme, 23rd September, Newcastle Business school - Northumbria University (CIPD Event)

Coming soon:

Learn how to 'Protect your Wickets' over breakfast... Exclusive Human Resources, Gordon Brown Associates and Three Counties Financial Advisors present a seminar to be held at Durham County Cricket Ground on Friday 14th November @ 9am. To register your interest in this seminar please email us.