Recruiters should regard the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) pay comparator as ‘their friend’, according to an employment lawyer.

Alison Treliving, a partner in the human capital practice at Squire, Sanders, Hammonds, told the recent Recruitment & Employment Confederation AWR National Summit that recruiters should use the pay comparator as a defence against potential legal claims.

“If you can identify your comparator and ensure your agency workers are getting the same, then you are complying with the regulations,” she said.

Treliving added that there didn’t always need to be a comparator. “When a job is unique, you pay what you pay because there is no comparator,” she said.

However, Treliving warned recruiters to be wary of clients, who in attempt to avoid a comparator created artificial distinctions between jobs, which were “broadly the same”. She said that clients should not, for example, split packers and pickers into two jobs, where one ‘job’ is specified as a ‘temp only job’ and paid at a lower rate.

“An Employment Tribunal may decide that the client deliberately created the lower rate job to avoid a comparator even though the jobs are broadly the same,” said Treliving.