Partner Article

Time, money and the many other benefits of using recruitment agencies

With many UK businesses in recovery mode and plotting growth in 2014, the battle for top talent has intensified and recruitment is on the up.

Snapping up the most suitable candidates from the pool of available people requires speed and specialist knowledge of where to look.

A reputable recruitment agency can offer both of these assets – but crucially it can do so cost effectively and far more efficiently than businesses that attempt to fill vacancies themselves.

According to research by REC, 69% of UK organisations conduct recruitment activity in-house despite the fact that more than half (53%) of businesses identify staffing agencies as the best place to find quality hires.

So why use agencies?

The benefits of using agencies to fill roles far outweigh the relatively small amount of expenditure to do so: They include:

Saving precious time: Studies suggest that it takes an average of 22.5 days to recruit a person from the interview to the ultimate offer. But throw in the other stages of the process, including analysis of the role and wading through piles of CVs, and the actual amount of time spent per position filled is actually significantly higher. A recent study by REC shows that a third of organisations receive 51 to 75 applications per position. At the same time, 70% of businesses questioned in the same survey say over half the applications are not qualified for the job. Agencies, however, will have a readily available pool of talent and act proactively to suitable fill the vacant role. This will save time throughout the organisation.

Minimising costs: Since time is money in business, as the old cliché goes, the sheer speed of a professionally managed recruitment process has a related cost saving. But further than that, there are also savings to be made by removing the cost of advertising jobs. Using a staffing service also gives businesses a predictable cost for each hire. Also, employees contracted through recruitment agencies are covered by the agency’s unemployment and worker’s compensation set-up rather than that of the business – further contributing to keeping overheads low.

Greater productivity: Spreading extra duties across the existing workforce to fill in for a vacant role can have a significant impact on staff morale and on sickness and absence levels. This in turn can result in a drop in productivity, while filling a role suitably and quickly through an agency can have the opposite effect.

More flexibility: Working with a recruitment agency enables businesses to quickly fill temporary roles at short notice. These may arise through sickness or an unexpected fluctuation in workload.

Planning for the worst: Often new recruits do not meet expectations and so, to protect businesses from the extra costs of finding replacements, many recruitment agencies offer a ‘guaranteed hire’ service which means that there are applicable rebates or a free replacement is provided if the new recruit leaves within the first few months.

For more information on the benefits of using a recruitment agency, visit www.temp-team.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Temp-Team .