Thirty local authorities will be among the first users of StaffShare, an online skills exchange which aims to connect employers with under-utilised employees who are available for secondment.

The social enterprise has been set up to help private, public and third sector employers manage peaks and troughs in the UK employment market and should help the local authorities address the cost-savings required following budget cuts and offer a flexible alternative to redundancy.

An individual put up for secondment via the marketplace remains entirely under their existing contract but their salary can be shared between current employer and the company to which they are being temporarily transferred.

Jan Parkinson, managing director of Local Government (LG) Employers, told Recruiter that local councils are under extraordinary pressure to cut their cost of operation and looking for ways to help valued employees move into new roles within the private sector is part of that strategy.

“Through its online skill exchange, StaffShare provides an innovative and practical way to save skills and develop employee careers through secondment to any number of new employers, while significantly cutting costs,” she said, adding that she believes it will also help the public sector retain knowledge. “As well as helping individuals it’s also about retaining knowledge that is so easily divested of at a time like this.”

The four founders of StaffShare have extensive experience in business and between them have held senior and executive private and public sector roles. Two of them, business development director Phil Flaxton and HR and operations director David Lennan, are also involved in the not-for-profit Work Wise UK which promotes and encourages the adoption of smarter working practices such as flexible and home working.

Flaxton told Recruiter that they came up with the idea of a low-cost skills exchange open to all sectors when the recession began to take hold as a way of cutting operational costs and saving jobs. “We’re all at a stage in our careers when we wanted to give something back, so we felt it was a good thing to develop,” he said.
ACASand the LG Group are among the organisations supporting the social enterprise.

Employers with under-utilised staff can register as a SkillMember and pay an annual fee of £500 (plus VAT). Once accepted, they can upload any number of general descriptions and CVs on employees who might be available as temporary transfer candidates. No individual employee or existing employer names or exact job titles are displayed in the marketplace and no-one can appear on StaffShare without their permission. Registration as a corporate member costs £2,000 (plus VAT) and allows up to five associates to both upload skills and download CVs.

Flaxton explains that currently the site is in phase one with skills being uploaded and will move to the second phase at the end of the month, with the search and download facility added ahead of the official public launch on 14 March. Features of the site include the ability to exclude certain competitor companies from accessing employee CVs.

Among the public sector roles the marketplace will be useful for exchanging will be planning officers whose roles can be under-utilised during a downturn but who are also difficult and expensive to recruit. Environmental health and building control officers may also find themselves in demand by the private sector to help organisations avoid some of the pitfalls that might occur when complying with regulations.

Parkinson hopes the marketplace will open up private sector employers to the skills available in local government and make them “less risk averse” when recruiting someone from the public sector.

www.staffshare.com