There are 3 consistent ways employers seek candidates to fill jobs in London and the UK in general. They are via Jobcentre Plus -a fee-free-service provided by the government (incidentally the primary means to locating a job in the public sector), advertising, and private sector employment agencies acting as recruiters.
Private Sector Employment Outlook Is London Bridge falling down in the UK? It did seem rather compromised as far as employment is concerned in the early to mid parts of 2006. The answer as to why is not very much different than the United States has seen over the past few years. Many companies are finding value in outsourcing of day-to-day operations to such places as India and other developing markets. Those countries with human capital available, and waiting for work, are eagerly exploiting human labor, and doing it for less.
The lower-skilled workforce are witnessing the evaporation of positions, while at the same time, those demanding higher skill levels, such as IT and management, in general are experiencing growth. This tends to balance the lower skill decline. In the UK there remain plenty of options for those with management skills and proven management abilities and backgrounds.
Managers with above average performance records are those most in demand in UK. jobs such as software engineers and accountants have been steadily on the rise since August of 2006. These positions, of course, apply to private sector employment.
An example of lower-skilled IT positions, evaporating in the UK, Prudential (announced 3.19.2007). This employer plans to axe some 600 in-house IT positions in the UK. Unwelcome news falling on those workers. In addition, a European Commission Green Paper on Labour Law threatens the right of IT contractors to work as freelancers according to a Professional Contractors Group claims.
Yet, in another survey conducted by Manpower Employment is much more optimistic. This survey reports 21 percent of those employers in the Financial sector intend to take on additional staff with only 2 percent planning decline. Hiring confidence is similar in the Hotels and Retail sectors. In general, the National average remains highly optimistic.
A quote from this article states, "The strength of the UK labour market is evidenced by how the staffing industry plans not being dented by recent increases in interest rates, nor in the face of rises in inflation. Confidence amongst Manufacturing employers is at a two and a half year high and consumer confidence on the High Street is such that employers are also looking to take on more staff." The article went on to suggest future increases in both interest rates and inflation forecasts may impact consumer spending and filter down to employers, but for now employers remain very optimistic.
Public Sector Employment Outlook Still many economists feel there is ample additional opportunity in the UK public sector when compared to the private employment figures. More opportunity abounds in the public sector with more than one quarter of a million people providing services to the public via government employment according to a website called YourLondon.
This website provided by the UK government offers employers a free service to recruit the 1.5 million job seekers visiting each week. This is the advice from those-in-the-know locally around the boroughs of London. It is also the government scheme to finding qualified staff. Previously offered as separate services provided to employers, London government now includes a section of its website called Jobcentre Plus.
This web tool brings together benefits, help and jobseeking altogether for employers and those seeking work. Jobcentre Plus operates the same way as an employment agency with one exception-it is a free service.
To advertise a job call Jobcentre Plus Employer Direct Helpline at Tel 0845 601 2001 to speak with either a vacancy service manager or account manager and provide information about your position. Jobs will be posted within two hours after receipt.
Alternative recruitment advertising methods include podcasting jobs.
Cleveland Part Time Sales Needed; Contract, Commission-Only
Looking to get started in a lucrative career in sales? Why not start with a local dot-com company selling high-technology solutions?
Oaseo.com, a job community for search engine optimization (SEO) professionals to find SEO jobs, is seeking a part time sales representative in Cleveland, Ohio to sell online job postings and other services to companies throughout the United States and potentially the world. This is a contract, commission-only opportunity. Job postings are currently sold at $99 per listing. Sales people receive $50 for every posting sold plus a commission on repeat business. Bonuses will also be considered for top-notch work and commitment. All sales are e-commerce, so there are no lengthy, time-consuming, complicated contracts to complete.
This job is perfect for anyone who finds themselves with other commitment who would like to take on some extra work and income. Perfect for students, other part timers like restaurant wait staff, retirees, homemakers and the like. This is an immediate opening.
Responsibilities:
1. Sell solutions nationally, following established guidelines.
2. Identify prospects utilizing creative lead generating techniques.
3. Present sales presentation and proposal to prospects, identifying positive features and advantages of our products and services over those of the competition.
4. Adhere to current Oaseo policies, procedures, products, programs and services.
5. Follow up with prospects and track success.
6. Provide regular reporting on calls made, prospects in the pipeline and sales closed.
7. Light customer service to clients.
Requirements:
High school degree or equivalent. Ability to work a part time schedule equaling 5-10 (or more if you want to make more money) hours. Available for local travel in the Cleveland, Ohio area for company meetings. Ambitious results oriented individual with entrepreneurial drive. Aptitude for problem solving; ability to determine solutions for customers (Consultative sales approach). Flexible Style (“do whatever it takes while remaining respectable” approach). Excellent interpersonal skills (verbal and written). Access to own computer with broadband/high speed Internet connection, office software (Excel, Word, etc.), phone. Candidate must possess basic Internet usage skills such as using Google and other search engines.
To be considered, please forward your resume or work experience to Joel at blog@oaseo.com. For more information, please visit http://www.oaseo.com.
As has been the case with many vertical markets, the staffing industry has been shaken by the ever-increasing take up of technology and automation. This impact is not reserved to specific parts of the process chain but to all components of the staffing companies’ value delivery.
To pick a few examples we can observe that, from a sourcing perspective, new online classifieds sites, call center applications, internships, etc; have redefined how people attract personnel. Similarly from a application management perspective, innumerable tracking systems promise to keep tabs on candidate processing at all time. Even processes such as on-boarding and induction supported with online training and other HRIS systems and ATS software.
The effect of technology on how the staffing industry delivers to its clients and candidates is therefore undeniable. What is worthwhile considering further is if these repercussions have all been positive, or if they ‘fell short of the promise’ in specific areas of the value chain.
The positive impact areas for technology:
Dealing with volumes; technology has certainly enabled scale to levels perhaps unimaginable a few years back; contact management systems, mobile applications, etc. all allow say a longer candidate reach whilst also producing efficiencies in the value chain
Coping with demands for speed; whether it is email, SMS or IM on your Blackberry; immediacy is now a business as usual that would have been pretty unusual in the age of the hardcopy memo and snail mail
The core area where technology did more damage than good
In replacing what needed to be kept ‘human’. The staffing and recruitment equation has people on both sides (clients and candidates); the workflow still requires entities having face to face or even phone conversations. As in other industries, to talk to a consultant is qualitatively better than to deal with an answering machine
In the creation of artificial elites, which supports the belief that staffing industry companies with ‘superior’ technologies will by default produce superior results in the eyes of its customers and clients. In practical terms, niche players who work the phone and their outlook directory can indeed derive profitable results for themselves and higher client and applicant satisfaction
Areas where technology does not have a chance of making a positive difference are
When the process is kaput; technology will not fix broken value chains. As a crass example, if a candidate report is still required for a two-day assignment as a personal assistant, then there is no system that will produce one quickly enough to beat the competitor uses the phone to close the same requisition.
Technology does not repair twisted business fundamentals, whether they relate to the company culture, its reward systems, go-to-market approach or its internal organisation. There is no candidate relationship system that will make up for a commission-based pay structure that offers higher bonuses for the larger number of transactions without it being indexed for a client satisfaction or quality component. It can be seen that in this case, technology can even exacerbate the issue for the firm’s stakeholders
Does this mean that technology as other progress ‘forces’ produce benefits and compromises?
The staffing industry has acted for the last few years as one of the major elements in the economical developments of countries worldwide and some could even say it has turned into a trend. Staffing industry goes hand in hand with the interdependency imposed between countries from all over the World by globalization. As a matter of fact, staffing industry is simultaneously a result and a leading agent of this social and political phenomenon called globalization.
If at the beginning of the 1970s, such concept as staffing industry was meaningful only to few actors on the markets, nowadays it has turned "global." As it proved already its usefulness in USA and some of the most developed European countries – United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands – it was little by little adopted all over the Old Continent, including after the fall of Communism Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Latin America and East Asia.
The staffing industry is important to the economy in general because it affects, positively, the efficiency of any company's activities. The improvement of a company’s efficiency through staffing industry is possible thanks to its understanding of how competitiveness works. This mainly has to do with identifying talent in itself and its usefulness for a company’s well-being. The special knowledge of talented people can and should be transformed by a company’s management team into its secret key to achieve the competitive advantage so necessary to surviving on the market. This means finding the right people, for the right positions, for the right time. Such a goal can be attained either by assigning extra tasks to persons already working for the company, or by temporarily hiring extra people.
Staffing industries are directly connected to the activity of the staffing firms which provide consultancy as for work force solutions in general, including staffing software solutions as well. Such specialized firms are also very useful when it comes to assessing the employee productivity – due to their objectivity, which cannot be guaranteed if the job would be assigned to an in-house department –, or training – which requires teaching experience and skills, apart from the knowledge of a certain field, and which for sure are features difficult to find in the case of the previously hired personnel. In the case of recruitment, as statistics show, staffing agencies should work hand in hand with in-house personnel in order to identify the person who fits best the nature of the job.
Staffing agencies assure full responsibility for their services and in order to assure the highest quality of the consultancy provided to their customers, they had to specialize. This is how, nowadays there are staffing companies specialized in fields such as health care, information technology, administration and secretariat, management, engineering and research.
In the developed countries, nowadays there are not only specialized staffing companies, but also specialized publications in both printed and electronic format, there are laws especially designed so to regulate all aspects related to this field of activity, there are associations and affiliated members dedicating their time to the existence of this industry. Little by little, the concept of staffing industry is also spreading into those areas of the world with a lower economical development and which follow in most situations the example of their "big brother."
The most important aspects of any individuals life are their physical , mental health. Providing the most professional and qualified individuals to meet the needs of the masses is a job within itself. When a staffing company takes on the daunting task of finding qualified and responsible professionals, such as those for physician jobs, for the healthcare industry their journey usually begins with education.
A proper education is a mandate for staffing companies working within the health care genre'. Education from an accredited university or college is an absolute necessity. This mandate gives a staffing agency the reassurance that a particular applicant has been taught and tested the within the necessary parameters of their chosen profession.
Another gold star that staffing agency look for when dealing with the health care industry is experience, whether he experience be pre-graduation from within the university or college or post graduation through internships or the some form of real world experience in a similar manner. However, only having real world experience in the health care profession usually will not be acceptable. Especially where patients lives are being handled.
For an example, is you have a nursing assistant which is a profession that does not require a formal education, this assistant is unaware of all the potential hazards and all of the necessary precautions that most be taken when dealing with certain patients. If this individual comes in contact with a situation they are un prepared for; the results can be catastrophic. However, since the staffing agency has such high standards for its employees this situation will not occur because the agency has done a an efficient job in staffing the medical facility.
Some positions in the health care industry do not require any actual medical training such as; a medical transcriptions, or insurance coder, emergency room clerk or doctors office or hospital secretary. These position are usually on the administration side of the health care industry and a staffing agency may not be as stringent on an individual having a University or College education. These particular jobs in the health care industry are just as easily preformed by someone with an education and someone who has only real world experience.
Staffing agencies who dabble in the healthcare industry have an immense responsibility to humanity and to the medical institutions that they provide employees for.In order to maintain the agencies integrity and to provide the best employees possible, agencies usually preform extensive criminal and medical background checks on potential employees.
This action prevents an unsavory individual from having the ability to harm or misrepresent themselves to a medical institution.These background checks are essential to the health and welfare of all individuals involved.When going through employee screening the potential employee should remember to graciously go along with the procedure. With these necessities in place, recruiting a health care facility can be accomplished efficiently and effectively.
All management professionals need to know the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that make part of every employee’s job in a business organization. This is the employee’s performance and it is based on the results he/she provides through his/her efforts. Assessment of employee performance is underlain by three main objectives:
Providing the employees feedback on their performance
Working out ways of more effective performance
Obtaining data for making decisions on prospective tasks within jobs and compensation
Feedback on the performance is also a main factor in improving employee performance because it not only encourages an individual (if positive feedback is provided) but also motivates him/her to put the maximum possible effort in the assigned task.
However, assessment of performance is not as simple a matter as it appears. In a large number of cases, appraisals made by the managers regarding employee performance fail due to one or more flaws in the manager’s judgment. Some of these flaws are:
Subjective Judgment
Judgment based primarily on the employee’s personality traits rather than his/her actual performance
The manager’s own lack of skills required to make a fair appraisal
To size up an employee’s degree of accomplishment, managers must understand the job requirements and be able to make objective observations of the results. So what kind of criteria does one need to use for measuring employee performance? These should be relevant to the job, easily understandable, and objectively measurable.
Techniques of Evaluating Employee Performance Three techniques most commonly used to examine the performance of an employee include: checklist, rating scale, and critical incident. Management by Objectives (MBO) is another method used to gauge the degree of success of an employee’s efforts.
The checklist method is actually based on recording the performance rather than evaluating it. This method works by a list of statements or questions to which the employee provides a yes/no response.
Several different rating scales have been developed for measuring employee performance. The one most commonly used, what may be called the ‘traditional’ rating scale, includes different variables like initiative, quality of work, amount of work done successfully, and so on. Usually, the employee is rated on a 3 to 5 points scale. More sophisticated rating scales are used in institutes or organizations according to the nature of the assigned tasks.
In the critical incident technique, the manager identifies the recorded incidents of an employee’s behavior. An incident that shows a result of unusual success or failure of the employee on some job task is regarded as ‘critical’. Success with the task reckons a positive performance and failure shows the contrary. The main disadvantage of this assessment as a background check technique, for example, is its time-consuming nature.
In the MBO system, ample objective feedback is provided on the performance of employees (usually the managers themselves) so as to make an evaluation based on the degree to which certain specified objectives were (or were not) achieved in a pre-determined period of time.
Avoiding Evaluation Errors All techniques of assessment on employee performance are likely to have some shortcomings and errors which the managers need to be aware of in order to make a fair judgment of the employee performance. The most common errors come with the rating method of assessment. Important ones of these include:
Strictness/Leniency: If the rater goes overly harsh or too lenient in sizing up the performance, erroneous assessment is the result.
Halo Effect: Well-known among psychologists, the halo effect results when rating on one dimension (regarded very important) considerably influences rating on other dimensions (assumed less significant).
Central Tendency Error: Sometimes, the rater tends to rate all employees equally, usually rating everyone as ‘average’. This facilitates the rating process for the rater but may produce discontent among employees.
Recency Effect: It is common among raters to be biased in rating a recent behavior which may shadow the previous performance. Employees are often very conscious to this and this leads to better performance each time the rating is conducted.
