Five Ways To Get Greater Control Of Recruitment Costs

In my last blog https://goo.gl/DaEPyh I wrote about the need for councils to get a grip on recruitment and resourcing costs as part of their cost-cutting efforts. For the last six months we’ve run workshops with HR and Procurement professionals to help them understand the main opportunities to support this agenda. Here are the typical actions a council can take.

1. Use Management Information To Ensure The Whole Workforce Is Effectively Deployed

Analysing spend across both the permanent and contingent workforce enables you to identify whether hiring a temporary worker is the best solution. Could part-time, permanent staff, be given more hours, or full time staff redeployed? It also enables you to spot trends and tee up your supply chain well in advance of need.

2. Put Protocols In Place To Guarantee Control

Full visibility of spend isn’t enough to control costs. You’ll also need to put firm rules in place to control hiring behaviour. For example North Yorkshire Council mandate that all agency spend goes through Matrix SCM, pay rates are controlled through the Matrix system and a strict eight week review rule stops workers going over the duration of their placement.

3. Collaborate With Other Councils

While all councils can strengthen their hand by clubbing together, collaboration is particularly important for councils that border other local authorities. Standardised T&Cs and pay rates across a geographical region stops the practice of workers jumping, mid-contract to a neighbouring council, for a higher pay rate.

4. Ensure All Workers Are 100% Compliant Before They Take Up Post

Avoid the financial cost and potential damage to reputation of having to rectify a non-compliant appointment. 

5. Grow And Educate Your Supply Chain

Local authorities have local and SME agendas to achieve and while cutting costs is important it is in no one’s interest to squeeze local and niche agencies to the point of disengagement. If you invest in sharing knowledge with local suppliers they will be able to respond rapidly to emergency situations.

For a more detailed account of how to control recruitment costs please download our report: https://we.tl/rnPTleZLPb.

Chris Grimes, Sales Director, Matrix SCM