We are particularly busy with part time bookings at the moment, which are proving very popular with candidates with families who are keen to increase their part time working hours to take advantage of Working Tax Credits. For certain families, the hours that qualify working families for Tax Credits are about to increase from 16 to 24 hours per week; one of our temporary staff, Sally from Bristol took her assignment precisely with this in mind:

“The temporary work that I have received through Thorn Baker has been a life saver,” Sally told us recently. “I was given an assignment cleaning in an office that fits around my childcare and provides me with much needed extra income, and will mean I still qualify for Tax Credits when the changes come about.”

All being well, Sally will soon be transferring onto a permanent contract with our client, on our free Temp to Perm scheme that we offer to clients for part time cleaners and general operatives after they have worked for 12 continuous weeks.

You can read about the changes to Tax Credits and other benefits here.

Further evidence of a recent slide in construction’s faltering fortunes has been provided by the latest Construction Trade Survey, showing that the final quarter of 2011 was especially tough for most of the industry.
SMEs in particular continue to be constrained by a lack of finance and sharply falling public sector funding, the survey suggests.

Key survey findings include:

•          37% of large and medium sized building contractors, on balance, reported that output in 2011 Q4 was lower than during the same quarter one year earlier.

•          The civil engineering workload balance was positive (at +5%) for the first time since 2008 Q1.

•          Manufacturers of light side products benefitted from growth in export sales with 37% of firms, on balance, reporting year-on-year sales growth in Q4.

•          Enquiries levels to SME contractors were widely reported to be below average, by -30% on balance.

•          Nearly half of specialist contractors surveyed reported a quarter-on-quarter reduction in orders in Q4.

•          Materials cost inflation and rising energy prices were the main drivers of strong overall cost inflation in the last three months of 2011.

The findings support latest data published by the Office for National Statistics last week that said construction output in the fourth quarter of 2011 fell by 0.5% compared with the previous quarter, although it grew by 2.8% for the year as a whole.

UK Contractors Group director Stephen Ratcliffe said: “Business conditions remain challenging but there are also still opportunities for the industry.  UKCG is working with government to help ensure the pipeline of public sector projects announced at the time of the autumn statement is translated into reality and that we help deliver the best possible value to a cash strapped public sector to ensure some continuity of work.”

Matt Page, Thorn Baker Construction Divisional Manager comments ‘’The market remains tight and extremely competitive. We are however seeing improved results in certain sectors and geographical areas, bucking the national trend. We have also seen a rise in Permanent Vacancies since Jan 1st compared to 2011, which is often an ‘advanced indicator’ of returning confidence. Our staff are a valuable source of up-to-date business news and the ‘consultancy’ part of our service is often underused by clients. Pick up the phone and speak to your Thorn Baker contact to see how we can add value’’.

6.15am – Theo’s teething…..So no alarm clock needed to wake the Senior household

7.30am – Nice trip to the dentist to start the day. Trust my phone to ring in the waiting room, one of my clients wanting 3 extra staff to start at 9am!!

9.30am – New starters checked in and cracked tooth fixed I arrive in Chesterfield to a nice cup of tea.  Catch up with our newest recruit Jason and prepare a sales session to canvass new potential clients for the rest of the morning.

10.30am – Success!! New business and visit secured for this afternoon as a company need a Fork Lift Truck driver. The snowball effect takes place as I secure 2 more semi skilled temporary vacancies with a contact who has moved onto pastures new.  Need to CV source and my trusted labour Manager Poppy is away on holiday

11.15am – Quick tea break and whilst the kettles boiling I send a candidate for a Fork lift truck assessment at my new client.

11.45am  – Whilst speaking to a past user I am given a tip off of a new vacancy which I pass onto Mike Simmonds on the Nottingham Construction desk.

13.00pm – Tomatoes on Toast for lunch today – not too exciting but lots of energy for an afternoon in recruitment

13.35pm -  2 prospective candidates sourced and submitted for the two vacancies picked up earlier in the day

14.00pm – Bid farewell to the Chesterfield team and head off back to Mansfield for the site visit.

14.45pm – As I pull into the car park I can see a familiar face as Justin (Our Candidate) has clearly impressed my new client as he whizz’s past on the Counterbalance truck.

15.30pm – Visit over, 1 booking up on the plan, 1 new business relationship formed and 1 very happy new client. Now to head across town to finish the day at our Onsite contract.

15.45pm – Hit the school traffic…..AAAGGGGHHHHH

16.10pm – Finally get there and open my emails to receive some great news, both submitted candidates have been invited for interview later in the week.

16.30pm – Pop into the warehouse to check on the current temporary workforce as they are working hard on last minute Valentines day orders. (Note to self: Remember to get the Mrs a card)

17.00pm – Catch up with Jason at Chesterfield to discuss the afternoons activity and plan for the following morning

17.20pm – Report back the day’s successes to Divisional Manager Matt Dann

17.30pm – Pack up and head home to try and beat my 9 year old twin boys on Fifa.

19.30pm – Feeling full after a lovely dinner but Thorn Baker never sleeps as I speak to todays new starters.

Just a normal day in recruitment…..Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Jamie is responsible for our  Mansfield industrial operation. If you require any assistance with your recruitment needs please call Jamie on 07976578751 or email at jamie@thornbaker.co.uk.

Average pay settlement of 2.4 per cent in sector, finds EEF

Only 5 per cent of manufacturing companies regard increasing wage costs as the most significant risk to business growth, according to new figures.

While one-third of production firms cited upward pressure on pay as a barrier to expansion, only one in twenty saw it as their most significant risk, found a study by manufacturers’ association EEF.

This factor ranked fourth behind the economic crisis, access to finance and a shortage of raw materials – which topped the table at 66 per cent – as manufacturers worried about the cost of materials or sourcing them at short notice from politically unstable countries.

Furthermore, virtually none of the 200 companies surveyed reported deteriorating workplace relations as the most prominent risk to growth.

Matthew Dann, Industrial Divisional Manager, commented;

“The EEF findings do not come as a surprise. Having spent the best part of last year in close consultation with our clients discussing the implementation of the Agency Worker Regulations it became apparent that in the main there was not huge discrepancies between permanent staff and temporary workers, and in most cases where there was a difference clients were happy to be paying that little bit extra to reward longer term temporary workers. By far and away the biggest concern for our customers at present would be the uncertainty created by the current econimic climate.”

Temporary Recruitment
With the concern surrounding the impact of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) on our clients bottom line profit, coupled with availability of work for candidates, it’s been a tense time in the temporary recruitment market for both parties. Thorn Baker Office & Commercial Division has seen an initial rise in fixed term contract hires from clients typically recruiting on a long term temporary basis. However, the temporary market remains buoyant across the industrial and commercial sectors particularly. In a recent survey by De Poel, the number of temporary staff in the UK rose by 13% in January compared to the same period in 2011.

Permanent Recruitment
In a recent KPMG report published by the REC (Feb 2012), permanent staff appointments have risen slightly for the first time in four months. With the impending Olympics it’s no surprise that those within the engineering and construction industries are most highly sought after, although current hotel and leisure staffing requirements have dipped slightly.

Currently one of the largest threats to our local economy is the fear of recession as opposed to its actual impact. The recent economic climate has encouraged our clients to delay financial decisions, not replacing natural attrition, and spreading workloads out over decreasing workforces. This ultimately can lead to understaffing, and loss of business due to poor service. We are encouraging our clients to plan effectively and maintain a robust infrastructure in order to ensure they have the right number of people in place to help drive their business forward in 2012.

For more details on this story or to discuss your current staffing requirements, please contact Sam Lawrence, Office & Commercial Divisional Manager on 0115 947 2055 or email sam@thornbaker.co.uk

We are actively working with main contractors and subcontractors and we are providing resources to them at local, regional, national and international levels.

Is your business seeing similar effects? And if so, are you looking to strengthen your staffing numbers either permanently or shot term?

The team have experience in filling roles  from Project and Site Managers through to Estimators, Quantity Surveyors and Board level personnel.

You can contact the team for an informal chat about your requirements at our head office in Nottingham on 0115 947 2005 or email the team on constructionperm@thornbaker.co.uk.

If you give the following reference code upon job registration, the first 5  permanent positions registered will be assigned at a discounted rate against our standard terms of business.

We look forward to hearing from you and assisting in your recruitment programme.

Please quote Perma1 on registration of your professional perm, contract or freelance construction  positions.

We are delighted to announce that we have gained a ‘One to Watch’ rating from The Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For Award.  

The award interviews and surveys staff measuring how good the company is to work for based on 8 main factors; leadership, management, personal growth, well being of staff, team spirit, how the company gives back to society, employee engagement and how happy employees are.  The award aims to highlight the companies nationally that strive to go beyond the bottom line investing in their most important assets…their employees.

Paul Jackman, Director comments: “We have been taking part in this accreditation project for a number of years now, consistently improving our score. We work hard in developing initiatives with the aim of creating real employee engagement, empowerment, improving staff retention and most importantly ensuring people are happy. We spend a lot of our lives at work so why not enjoy it?”

John Robinson, Director comments: “We are especially proud of the accreditation this year given the current economic climate. Most businesses are still trying to recover from the depth of the recession and we are extremely happy that we didn’t let the hard times affect our core business ethics; of being a great place to work, which we believe is key to providing a quality service to our clients and candidates”.

We believe that taking part in the award scheme in it self is a great booster for employees. It shows that we are truly committed to our employee’s well being and receiving the award instills a sense of pride within our teams.  We intend on being committed to the award scheme and take part year on year.

We are currently recruiting; visit our ‘careers with us’ page for more information.

So what has the initial impact been?

“In terms of our clients hiring behaviour, very little has changed and it has been a smooth transition. There are 1.5m temporary agency workers in the UK that provide a massively flexible resource. That was never likely to change despite the nature of the legislation”

For our temporary workers, a small number have benefitted from an increase in basic pay and holiday entitlement. They have of course already benefitted from what are known as first day rights. This provision of ’day one’ rights has proved to be straightforward to implement, mainly due to the fact that in the vast majority of cases these were already provided.”

 

Who is responsible for providing these 12 week rights?

“Remember that the right only extends to basic working and employment conditions, specifically the elements of pay, working hours and holiday entitlement. The responsibility for ensuring these rights are provided lies primarily with us, Thorn Baker. We do rely on our clients to ensure we are provided with additional information to ensure we comply and keep both parties compliant”

 

Have costs gone up?

“Lets be frank, this is the area of most concern for our clients. In practice, they have increased for less than 10% of our client base. This is because not many agency workers are hired in excess of 12 weeks, and where they are, they are often paid more than permanent comparators, and hence no increase in cost applies.

Where costs they have increased, these are in the region of 3 to 5 % uplift, and these are because these clients have chosen to embrace the legislation. There are of course a number of solutions we can provide to our clients to ensure no cost increases whatsoever”

What changes have been made behind the scenes?

“The smooth transition has only been made possible by a significant investment in bespoke software upgrades, additional procedures and staff training. Combined with an 18 month campaign to educate and inform our clients, the result has been ‘business as usual’. This impacted on pretty much every part of the business except those dealing exclusively with permanent placements”

 

What next for AWR?

“There is no single body responsible for ensuring agencies comply with the legislation, a quite surprising fact when you consider that BIS enforce the Conduct Regulations to which we are accountable. It is therefore inevitable that individual tribunal claims under AWR will be brought as the legislation is put to the test. Many in the industry, including myself, would cautiously welcome these claims, as there are still many areas of the legislation which remain wide open to various levels of interpretation. Clarity can only be a good thing.

What I can be very confident of is that our clients and ourselves will be able to steer well clear of any tribunal claims. This is down to our preparation, attention to detail, audit process and well trained staff. Our mission as far as AWR is concerned is to ensure we keep our clients both compliant and competitive. A mission we are determined to complete.”

 

Clients can be reassured that agency workers are still ‘temps’ and will continue to be able to be hired and off hired at a days notice. Agency workers will still be excluded from many employment rights such as Unfair Dismissal, Redundancy Pay, Notice Pay, Parental Leave, Parental working, Flexible working, Collective Consultation and TUPE protection. In practical cost terms, a recent CIPD survey demonstrated that much fewer agency workers than expected (13%) could actually cost clients more.

The article highlights how simply having an account and broadcasting news is not making the most of these social platforms. Construction companies should think about social media as a 2-way communication channel that allows them to listen to what customers are having problems with, share educational articles that prove technical expertise, participate in discussions about industry regulations and design standards or use these channels to connect with supply chain partners across the globe.

It is interesting to see that the majority of the UK’s largest Construction companies recognise the need for social media, yet few are fully embracing it and fewer still are gaining any recognisable value. I see the same pattern across companies outside the Top-15 too. With very little extra investment many of these companies could gain significant benefit. We would be glad to advise our clients in this field, should you wish to discuss your social media practices or learn how to get started please give me a call on 0161 833 4411 or email me direct matthew@thornbaker.co.uk

Matthew Page, Construction Divisional Manager, Thorn Baker

5.50am…..damn that alarm clock is loud! An early start today as I have a busy day ahead of me in our Chesterfield branch.

7.30am The first scare of the day, and nothing work related, as an arctic lorry jack knives in front of me on the M1. I avoid it by a whisker! Strong coffee needed when I arrive in branch just before 8am.

8.00am The day begins with a catch up of my overnight emails, not too much exciting stuff, although I do have a reasonable looking CV to go through, for one my outstanding vacancies. Once I have done this I spend some time with one of my Consultants, running through a new payroll process we have in place for one of our key clients. As ever, its hugely important for both candidate and client that payroll is completed accurately and on time, wrong pay/wrong invoices can lead to all manner of problems.

10am First interview, 2 hours spent with a strong candidate for a Business Development Management role I have for the Industrial Division. The interview goes well (I think for both parties), and my initial thoughts are that I will arrange for a further meeting next week. In the meantime I will get my candidate to complete one of our online personality profile analysis tests.

Midday is lunch on the go, today’s menu includes a chicken pasta salad, fruit, and more fruit (washed down with the recruiters drink of choice, Red Bull!) Whilst eating lunch I have some preps to do for my quarterly review meeting with my Director. Also get some good news from my Nottingham team, as an important client who has had a slow start to the year calls for a number of staff to start asap.

2pm A couple of hours spent in my review, which overall goes pretty well. Quarter 4 of 2011 is now put to bed, and we are fully focused on what we need to do over the next few months, both for my division, and the company overall. We have an exciting few months ahead of us.

As the day draws to a close I have one further meeting, with my Branch Manager and Recruitment Consultant. Week 2 of the new year and its important that we hit the ground running, and we spend an hour or so discussing and agreeing our immediate sales strategy for the Chesterfield branch. I finish the meeting content that we have the makings of a decent sales and marketing plan in place, over to my staff now to get the good name of Thorn Baker out in the market place.

By 5.40pm I am back on the M1 heading towards Leicester. My days not over though, as I now have the joys of an hour or so in the gym to look forward to, for those that know me you will realise this is not my favourite activity, in fact I would much rather be supping a pint of my favoured Guinness!

I’m finally home by 8pm, already contemplating what the following day in recruitment holds for me.#

 
Matt oversees branches in Nottingham, Mansfield, Chesterfield and Leicester, supplying clients in the Manufacturing, Automotive, Packaging, Local Government, Food, Aerospace, Distribution and Logistics sectors.  If you require any assistance with your recruitment needs please call Matt on 07817 983655 or email at matthew.dann@thornbaker.co.uk