We were recently asked by the Global Recruiter magazine to offer some advice in their 2017 special edition aimed at temporary recruiters. Merit Software has spent the last 20 years at working with hundreds of temporary recruitment agencies and have assisted hundreds of companies to streamline their businesses and improve technology with our systems.
The Global Recruiter wanted to know the biggest challenge and although there are plenty of smaller challenges facing temporary recruitment businesses such as actually filling placements, recruiting good consultants and so on, it has been our experience that compliance with ever-changing legislation is definitely the biggest challenge in the temporary marketplace at present. We’ve seen some really big changes to the way temporary workers are managed and paid, and as suppliers to the temporary industry, it’s often been a challenge for us as well to get solutions to market fast enough when the legislative change driving them comes into force in just a matter of weeks from announcement.
The recent rapid implementation of the off-payroll legislation in the public sector (IR35) really shook up some sectors of the industry and when we reached out to our customers to understand how they planned to manage the changes, we were surprised that a small but significant percentage said they would ‘wait and see’. This shows the level of fatigue temporary recruitment businesses are suffering when faced with yet another change, and the trust they need to put in their suppliers. Building a strong partnership with suppliers who really know the temporary market is really important and being ready to adapt to the next change will keep many temporary recruitment agencies ahead of their competitors as there are many more of these changes on the horizon.
Our award-winning payroll solutions and dedicated after sales support and project management teams mean that agencies can always look to us for help when the legislative landscape shifts again and we look forward to facing these challenges as a partnership with our customers.