Recruitment, responsibility and law

January 25th, 2021 | Industry News

It can be easy to think that other people’s problems are not our own. So when the The Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) recently announced the release of a Responsible Recruitment Due Diligence Toolkit, it may not have seemed particularly relevant to the UK. However, the toolkit, designed to prevent forced labour in supply chains, is definitely something that temporary hire agencies should at least be aware of. Recruitment software UK based hasn’t always focused on forced labour – but the Morecambe Bay tragedy showed that gang labour can be problematic here too. The difficulties are that there’s often a long supply chain between end hire and agency consultant, which makes due diligence difficult, and the nature of temporary contracts can make in-depth investigation of every link in that chain simply unmanageable. The best recruitment software for agencies should ensure that a clear documentation trail exists both for the contractor and the contractee, which means that patterns and oddities can be traced. Minor difficulties can also arise around the tendency of non-UK workers to give versions of their names that can alter over time as they anglicise them, or even to adopt nicknames earned on previous temporary contracts as actual names for new ones. Web based recruitment software has an easier time of aggregating this kind of issue by birthdate or document searching to ensure coherent record keeping. While it’s often forgotten that labour gangs can operate in many areas of the temporary economy, stellar record keeping will ensure any temp agency can protect itself, and temporary workers, from problems.

The first weeks of 2021 have seen a rapid turnover in senior law appointments too, with many British law firms hiring in new international partners. The cascade effect has kicked in too, with a churn in executive and administrative legal roles, and many law firms are using recruitment CRM software to track upcoming talent and position themselves to recruit for future vacancies at a time when bringing in staff from overseas is likely to be more problematic owing to Brexit.