Right, don’t switch off – this isn’t a technical in-depth article about that awful C word which recruiters would pefer to sweep under the carpet.
I’d been reading a blog post by the ever insightful Steve Ward about Recruitment Ethics whilst working on our next Directors Only event and I realised how recruitment ethics fits very neatly into the product offering from NowWeComply.
So, recruiters, in general, are good at sales (and listening) but bad at admin. Recruitment businesses tend to like to the keep the cost of overheads down (that includes admin staff). The combination can mean that things like sending out terms of business, checking references, doing the “right to work” checks can be left to the last minute, done badly or skipped. Things like ensuring you meet data protection is VERY often skipped from what I’ve been hearing anecdotally lately. Also, getting “right to work” wrong can be very costly indeed (apparently up to £10,000 fines); I hear over £19 Million in fines were handed out to agencies and businesses who slipped up last year!
So whilst compliance is a total heart sink – why not think about it in a different way. Consider it a way to ensure you hit your ethics target (please don’t tell me recruiters aren’t ethical!!) and deliver a better service to your candidate and client. Additionaly, if you are thinking that one day it would be rather nice to sell your business and retire, then having the right processes in place and ‘doing things properly’ can make a significant difference to what you’ll get for it.
If you really can’t face tackling the problem yourself you could speak to someone like NowWeComply. Their funky little system allows you to add in all your processes (you may have to do a bit of work on them first mind!) and then each time you deal with a new client, candidate employee or supplier you can treat them properly as the system will do it for you automatically.
However you do it just make sure you do; it’ll make you a more streamlined recruiter, it’ll make you a more ethical recruiter – it will earn you more money and it might just also help to break that awkward stereotype our industry has!
