Groves doubts AWR will change 'bad apples'
<%$Image:
The Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) that come into force on 1 October will do nothing to alter the behaviour of those companies that it was supposed to change, according to the head of national resourcing at Yell.
Andrew Groves told Recruiter: “Those organisations whose behaviour AWR was supposed to improve will continue to treat their workers badly. The smaller or the less ethical companies will carry on until they get pulled up.”
In contrast, he said: “The companies like us [Yell] that have treated them fairly won’t be affected because we already treat them well.”
In response to AWR, Groves said Yell had chosen the so-called Swedish Derogation, with Pertemps employing Yell’s 300 agency workers on permanent contracts of employment. This includes paying them 50% of their pay for up to four weeks between assignments.
While these workers would not receive the same pay as Yell’s permanent staff, Groves said it sufficient to attract good quality agency staff. ” I don’t think we need to pay any more,” he added.
Meanwhile, the chief financial officer at built environment and construction recruiter AndersElite warned that some agency workers employed by umbrellas could see their pay fall below the level required to establish parity with permanent colleagues.
Steve Smith told Recruiter that “excessive admin fees” charged by some umbrellas firms could put pay parity for contractors at risk. Examples of admin charges are leaving fees, expenses processing fees and being charged while not working. To satisfy itself that that contractors are being treated properly, AndersElite had introduced spot checks on pay slips issued by its umbrella suppliers.
The company also verifies that contractors are genuinely self-employed by requiring umbrellas to supply it with a copy of each contractor’s Construction Industry Scheme registration. “There were two to three suppliers who weren’t prepared to provide this information, so we don’t deal with them anymore,” said Smith.
With just over a week to go before AWR implementation, a senior recruiter at a major UK manufacturer (who wished to remain anonymous) warned that AWR took his company a step closer to replacing agency workers with permanent staff.
“Total labour cost is the key driver for us,” said the executive. “All these things make it more expensive, and we become less competitive in Europe.”
