Prime has an Appointment with Minister of Employment Relations
Robyn Holmes, Managing Director, has a very exciting appointment made with Edward Davey MP on Tuesday 19th October 2010. Ed Davey, the Minister of Employment Relations will be discussing the effects of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) coming into act in October 2011, whilst Robyn argues the case for small businesses and the time needed to adjust, along with the sheer amount of extra work having to be put in for minimal gain.
The new regulations will affect both employment agencies such as Prime, along with the majority of companies recruiting directly themselves. Robyn reasons that the amount of added work to comply with the regulations is too onerous on small businesses.
A REC survey showed that 49% of recruiters thought that the additional bureaucracy would drive an uplift in costs, which, in turn effects the current economic climate and indeed the job market as it heralds another blow for the continued increase in temporary staff, as the Temporary employment market is working well as a platform for staff to be introduced to the permanent workforce. Typical Agency work keeps people in the labour market.
To be able apply all these changes, we will have to retrain our staff, as they, in turn, will have a far greater amount of paperwork to adhere to, it could be extremely difficult to find a basis on which equal treatment can be established with business, as the need to appraise current pay scales to pay our temporary staff in line with their permanent staff is difficult. Indirectly the cost burdens on our business could be huge and threatens the invaluable service we provide to the local community.
Temporary workers do gain benefits out of the AWR system coming into place, but it is at the cost of businesses suffering, as currently 85% of temporary workers are happy with their present pay and conditions. Robyn makes a good point by explaining that temporary workers are already happy with the pay and conditions they have, via employment agencies,… so why the need for change?
