Using a Recruitment Agency to find Staff

Employers using recruitment firms to discover short-lived or long-term employees have certain duties.

Recruitment agencies that find staff for other companies, but pay the personnel themselves, are called ’em ployment companies’.

If you take on workers through a work business, they’re accountable for ensuring the workers’ rights under working time and minimum wage guidelines.

Recruitment agencies supplying workers for agriculture, food processing, horticultural and shellfish-gathering markets are referred to as ‘gangmasters’ – if you use one, you require to make sure they are licensed gangmasters.

Employers’ obligations

As an employer, you are accountable for:

– company workers’ health and wellness
– guaranteeing they have the same access to shared facilities as other employees
– letting them know about relevant task vacancies in your business

However, you can stop offering work to a firm worker, as long as they’re not used by you.

Additional rights after 12 weeks

After 12 weeks in the exact same task, agency employees are entitled to the very same terms and conditions as employees doing the very same or comparable work. This consists of:

– pay
– working time, pause and breaks
– night work
– yearly leave
– time off for antenatal consultations for pregnant workers

For more details, see guidance on agency worker guidelines.

Transfer fees

Recruitment firms can charge a transfer fee if you employ an employee directly, or a worker is supplied to you through another recruitment agency after their initial agreement. Recruitment companies should inform you in your agreement if they plan to charge you transfer costs.

When a company worker begins deal with you, a recruitment company can just charge a transfer fee if you take the employee on within either of the following durations, whichever ends later:

– 8 weeks of the end of their last project with you
– 14 weeks of the start of their very first assignment with you

If there has actually been a break of 42 days in between the employee’s projects with you, the 14 weeks will start from the start date of the most current assignment.

The recruitment agency may likewise charge you a transfer fee if:

– you present a worker to a 3rd party who then uses them throughout this period
– you employ an employee introduced to you by a recruitment firm before they have started their assignment with you through the agency

Extended hire duration

If you employ a worker provided to you by a recruitment agency, the company should offer you an extended hire duration rather of charging you a transfer fee. This suggests they would continue to provide the employee to you for a predetermined period without altering the terms of the task. Once the predetermined duration ends, you would utilize the worker directly with no transfer fee.

A firm may charge you a transfer cost if they introduce a worker to you and you employ them:

– before they begin work through the recruitment agency
– through a different agency, before they begin overcome the introducing recruitment firm

In both cases, the presenting agency must offer the option of a hire duration instead of charging you a transfer cost. The regards to this hire period should be set out in your contract with the recruitment firm.