Are we ready?

As much of a fresh and difficult issue to approach, this subject has become it's better to mention sooner rather than later; the biggest change in recruitment legislation to affect the industry in the last few years has to be the implementation of the AWR (Agency Workers Regulation) on October 1st this year. Looking back on what will shortly be the second month of the implementation of the legislation we are drawn to ask "Are we ready"?. Dutton International of course, asked itself "will we be ready"? when attending industry think-tanks and REC conferences as early as 2010, since the conception of the new legislation. We had to consider how we should begin to prepare ourselves and to ensure that we didn't in any way tarnish the reputation we have for providing a service and a safeguard to our Clients and our Temporary Workers alike. Investing time, effort and money into making sure that by 01.10.11 we would be not only prepared, but already towing the line as far as the regulation is concerned. To retrospectively answer our question "are we ready"? ? The answer is "yes". But, to return to our original question and perhaps we need to ask ourselves, our Clients, Candidates and Contract Staff; as an industry "Are we ready"? It has taken us a long time as a group to build up the robust systems we have and so the AWR was merely a small hurdle of systems management for us to overcome. We were one of probably few recruitment groups to welcome the legislation as, in reality, as long as we work in an environment of trust and respect between our clients, candidates and protective legislation, we really shouldn't have too much to worry about. In practice we haven't, but as an industry we have seen our counterparts seek methods of sidestepping the legislation and in some areas, unfortunately, ignoring it completely. In the 6 months leading up to October 1st, we began to consult our Clients on the effect the legislation may have on them and advised them on how best to develop their recruitment practices in a way that would protect them from any adverse effects of the legislation and also were able to advise on how to make the legislation work in their favour. We found that our approach and our level of information, in print, in seminars and in one to one consultancy meetings was over and above what was being made readily available across the industry. As we take a step back now, we are content that our preparation and on-going practice made us ready and operationally coherent with the legislation. As we continue to work in line with the AWR, we continue to offer out the same service to potential Clients. If you are currently utilising the services of a Recruitment Company, we encourage you to ask them the same question; "are we ready'? and we encourage you to contact us to demonstrate to you how we became ready to continue to legally and unfalteringly support the needs of our Clients and how we could quite easily be ready to support you too.