What a great temporary service looks like!
What does a great temporary recruitment service look like? A while back I sat down to redesign LiCa Scientifics temporary services with this question on my mind.
Our systems were never bad or broken in fact if anything people were quite happy with them. However I had a view that temporary recruitment was a bit stuck in its ways with clunky forms to fill in and excel files underpinning activities.
Within my temporary clients I also felt for a while like I’d exclusively been working with one group. Busy successful people who didn't need any more forms in their life! They all looked and sounded something like this:
A typical day would be their phone and email buzzing all day with projects and stakeholders seeking updates. While successful also feel ‘maxed out’. Hence wanting staff.
The main issue would then be frustration about a lack of personnel available and absolutely not the time for excessive interviews in the schedule. They would have a job tomorrow for someone, if that person were made available rapidly i.e. within a few hours but no more than a couple of days before interview. Our low interview:offer ratio has always aligned brilliantly.
Their work is/was always very high value. I found I’d usually get one or two line emails off this tribe of clients, not out of rudeness, but because they were far too busy for more. Any hours evidently go towards delivering for their business.
These are people who value speed but want the reassurance of traceability and quality. They are simply put too busy for ‘extra admin’ but are happy to approve key reports and need data integrity in their systems.
They all needed a supplier they can trust that could work with minimal input, delivering outcomes without creating a time-burden to an already very busy business.
Does this sound familiar?
The systems I put in place were designed to fit brilliantly with this group and then achieve two things.
(1) Rapidly supply key skills my clients needed, keep them growing and achieving their goals.
(2) Then, with all respect, to kinda 'keep the out of the way' unless needed for anything else!
Now, running a temporary agency is a serious business. We have to do certain activities which are:
· Pay staff for their hours worked
· Administer timesheets
· Administer holidays or other absence
· Pay various taxes to HMRC
· Issue payslips, various taxation related forms P32, P45, P60 etc
· Manage expenses claims
· Carry out Agency Worker Regulation reviews
· Set up pensions
· Other administration such as onboarding checks, referencing, the list goes on
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The takeaway probably is, it’s a lot of admin and forms to fill in. It’s a serious job and one I’ve done for 20 years.
Naturally we need to have interaction with clients to do some of these.
So, how do we do this without passing 'more work' onto our clients?
This led to my main solution which is now folded up into an app.
How does this work?
· Geolocation (see above), your phone or smartwatch knows where you are 24/7 and can do your timesheet for you in the background. We have a geofence around all of our clients meaning as a colleague approaches the location their phone will ping to log in, and do the opposite on exit. If they forget I can take care of that out for them later in two seconds. They don’t need to enter numbers or ‘fill in’ a timesheet, the iPhone/Android will do it. Our preferred suppliers app does this every month for thousands of peoples hours saving significant time and energy. For sites where no phones may go, we offer a QR code based clock in and out.
· App based administration all stakeholders have various levels of access to from User to Administrator. This App breaks activities down to ‘one click’ alerting all stakeholders to an absence, shift adjustment or requesting planned holiday. It is instantly searchable, and will do useful ‘PA’ things like alert to two people booking holiday at the same time in the same team as well. It automatically generates the data below:
· Instant data access. There is no good reason in 2024 to have any delay in requesting and receiving all data. Our systems act as a data silo and deliver this meaning you know at the push of a button any numbers you need, time, financial, anything.
· Availability, by working in the same ‘group’ of people all the time (scientists seeking roles in 5 main areas) we have the deepest network that you could ever need. It’s not failed us in LiCa Scientifics’ 8 years and it gets bigger/better every week! We can work on the basis of hours not days when it comes to candidate availability.
· Using 'our own' experts. Our knowledge is good but it has limits and sometimes you need an expert. We have a preferred supplier list of professionals in key fields from chartered accountants to employment law specialists, which also drive best practices and keep us up to speed on the latest legal knowledge we require.
In summary, we changed systems to improve them and chose our partners carefully from the worlds most trusted and best known brands. This means we have been able to scale significantly in our temporary staff offering while at the same time, improving quality of experience for all parties.
The outcome is we rapidly supply the scientific skills needed and then we get out of the way. Giving full visibility, in depth analysis or administrative audit a mere click or call away.
Do contact us to discuss your next temporary scientific requirement!
LiCa Scientific Ltd
+44 161 443 4173