New to Market

26 March 2024

NEW TO THE MARKET: 25-30 MARCH 2024

• Digital identity security specialist ID Crypt Global has launched its early access Authentic Media Protection program (AMP). With AMP, the creator of an original image is able to link a verifiable digital identity to any file they produce, incorporating branding and website URLs in the process. The free-to-use web browser extension provides a visual overlay for ease of authentication and can work across any information sharing platform such as X, Facebook or Instagram.

• Global matching and hiring platform Indeed has launched Specialist Media Networks to help employers hire for competitive and hard-to-fill roles. The industry-specific Specialist Media Networks enable employers to reach more candidates with specific, in-demand skills. Tech Network, the first of Indeed’s Specialist Media Networks, focuses on the tech sector – an industry where many roles are hard to fill. Specialist Media Networks are designed to better support employers hiring for specialist roles such as those in tech.

21 March 2024

CandidatePages to cut social media application process to 60 seconds

According to the company press release, the simple and intuitive application process can be completed in just 60 seconds, making applying for a job quick and easy, rather than being redirected to a lengthy, impersonal form.

CandidatePages, which works with job adverts placed on all social media including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, draws its inspiration from eCommerce rather than traditional recruitment tech.

It features an AI assistant who ‘chats’ with applicants to learn more about their experience, relays answers to hiring managers and even helps candidates complete their application.

This includes identifying any anomalies in a CV, such as career gaps or changes, to give a fuller picture to recruiters and help them identify candidates whose skills best match the role’s requirements.

CandidatePages autosaves throughout the process, and in the event the candidate doesn’t finish the form, the AI assistant will later encourage them to do so by engaging directly with them via SMS and email.

According to the company, the first recruitment campaign to use it saw a 9.7% application rate, with one in 10 of those seeing a job advert applying immediately (more than double the typical conversion rate for application form completion).

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19 March 2024
HR

Durhamlane’s workforce benefits from international working

The new policy allows its employees to travel outside the UK for up to two months per year.

Created after the ‘revenue accelerator’ firm identified a significant percentage of its younger employees had a desire to travel alongside working, especially those with families overseas.

The firm is headquartered in Newcastle, but its 97-strong workforce is spread across the UK. A quarter of its clients are located in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. As a result, 21% of the durhamlane team is multilingual, covering 12 different languages, a company statement said.

Under the slogan ‘The World Is Your Workplace’, the International Working Benefit “complements the lifestyles of employees, allowing them to visit family abroad and celebrate religious holidays, and also having an in-office presence with durhamlane’s clients internationally”, the company said.

Sinead Hall, chief people officer at durhamlane, who developed the policy, said: “When we considered the diversity of our workforce (which is made up of at least 18% ethnic groups), and the fact that we sponsor migrant workers via the skilled worker route, we started to think about where some of our employees call home. This led us to looking at the ability to work internationally.

“Together with the fact that a lot of our clients have head offices all over the globe, this brought us to the conclusion that it was important to give our employees more freedom to choose their location of work, whether remotely in the UK or abroad.

“We believe the International Working Benefit does this, meeting our objectives of attracting and growing our people, not only through nurturing and empowering existing employees, but also making the company an attractive prospect to join.”

The benefit was trialled and subsequently rolled out after it was met with unanimous approval from an internal focus group led by Sam Vardon, durhamlane’s junior people adviser. Feedback centred around mental health benefits, as well as an improvement to social life and happiness outside of work, proving the success of the policy.

Since then, four employees have used the International Working Benefit to travel around the world, from Spain, to France, to Pakistan and beyond.

Commenting on what the policy means on a personal level, head of operations Josh Guthrie said: “This benefit allows me great flexibility in being able to visit my parents, who emigrated to Spain at the end of 2023. I can work completely seamlessly when abroad and keep in regular contact with my line manager and my team.

“My parents used to live locally, so their move took a bit of getting used to, but the International Working Benefit allows me to spend time with them more than I expected possible.

Sales development representative Waqas Rajput added: “I visit my family during the month of Ramadan, and as a practicing Muslim, it is invaluable for me that I can break my fast with my family and celebrate Eid. This policy allows me to make the most of my travel.

“Whilst using the benefit, I was able to work as normal and exceeded my standards of working.”

Over the next year, durhamlane said it hopes more employees will take advantage of the new policy. 

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18 March 2024

NEW TO THE MARKET: 18-22 MARCH 2024

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) has introduced an online Learning Hub designed to assist recruitment firms in managing staff training while empowering employees to take charge of their own development. The new platform provides a “smoother” experience for delegates, offering access to all training documents, activities and latest course information in one place, allowing individuals greater autonomy over their career development. The Learning Hub also enables managers to monitor and review current training programmes to ensure team members are on track with development targets.

Babcock International Group (Babcock), a defence company, has created more than 1,000 new jobs at its advanced manufacturing and shipbuilding facility in Rosyth to support the delivery of programmes and development of its workforce capabilities. The new job opportunities include 400 apprenticeships, 350 production support operatives, skilled engineers, tradespeople and graduates. The roles will support programmes like the Type 31 frigate design and build programme.

• Professional services firm Cognizant has partnered with digital skills training provider QA to develop an MSc level apprenticeship programme aimed at increasing the number of women in leadership positions within tech companies. The new programme has been designed to develop wide-ranging technical excellence as well as executive leadership skills through a work-based learning program organised by QA.

Jobmatch Sweden has entered into a new partnership agreement with Broadwing Recruitment, a staffing organisation based in Malta. This collaboration allows the utilisation of Jobmatch’s DNV-certified work psychological tests in Malta and Luxembourg. As a result, Jobmatch has extended its presence to a total of eight countries.

4 March 2024

NEW TO THE MARKET: 4-8 MARCH 2024

• Recruitment agency Connect Appointments has relocated its Edinburgh branch as part of its continued growth and expansion. The branch was initially located within the company’s Livingston office, but due to an increase in business the decision was made to relocate to the South Gyle area of Edinburgh. The team of experienced recruiters specialise in a range of industries including production and manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, and food and drink.

• Lancaster-based Eventus Recruitment Group has launched a financial services recruitment division. Duncan McIlroy, who has over 20 years’ experience in financial services recruitment, will head up the new division. He will connect professionals with financial services businesses across the North-West. McIlroy will cover all recruitment and jobs within pensions and retirement, financial planning, investments, mortgages, personal protection and employee benefits.

• Global executive search firm Granger Reis has opened a new office in Manchester with the launch of its Digital Infrastructure Practice. The new Granger Reis office is in the Globe & Simpson Building on Quay Street, and the eight-strong team is headed up by digital infrastructure (DI) leadership expert Steve Dargan. Dargan brings 17 years’ experience in the technology sector and moved to Granger Reis following a five-and-a-half-year tenure with executive search firm Korn Ferry.

• Global mobility leader Localyze has partnered with StackOne to launch integrations to help HR teams save resources on staff relocations, offsites and workations. The new integrations aim to simplify processes for global HR teams and employees, reducing data errors and enhancing productivity.

The Intersection Network has launched a new online diagnostic tool to help organisations assess the maturity of their talent acquisition diversity & inclusion efforts. Designed for talent acquisition, HR and diversity professionals, the ‘Diversity and Inclusion Talent Acquisition Maturity Assessment’ provides a benchmark for measuring progress on diversity & inclusion initiatives.

28 February 2024
HR

Government committee says HMRC ‘is apparently struggling to cope’

Describing its customer services as “at an all-time low”, continuing a five-year decline, the report goes on to say that “HMRC is apparently struggling to cope”, citing a dual rise in the taxpayer population and the complexity of people’s tax affairs.

As many in the contracting and recruitment sectors would expect, the organisation’s handling of IR35 off-payroll rules issues came under significant fire in the report, which stemmed from a Public Accounts hearing in December 2023 to scrutinise HMRC’s performance. The PAC said it was “concerned” that HMRC’s approach to tackling the IR35 off-payroll rules was “deterring legitimate economic activity, and that a lack of confidence in how to apply the rules, together with HMRC’s tough approach when taxpayers make mistakes, is unnecessarily putting companies off using contractors”.

The PAC has recommended that HMRC provides the Committee with the number of active litigation cases for IR35 and the amount of tax at risk and assess the impact of HMRC's approach to administering IR35 reforms on the use of contractors in different sectors.

Commenting on the IR35-related segment of the report, Dave Chaplin, CEO of Contractor Shield, said: “We currently have a ‘bad policing’ problem with IR35, where the IR35 tax police are writing their own rule book, and not following the law, leaving taxpayers with the only option of appealing to an expensive and costly tax tribunal, which many cannot afford. 

“IR35 tax cases are notoriously complex, demonstrated by the fact that in the last 24 IR35 tax tribunal hearings, HMRC has fielded barristers in all cases, except two.” He noted that this fact contradicted a claim by Jim Harra, permanent secretary and CEO, HMRC, in oral evidence to the PAC that in most hearings HMRC do not use legal counsel.

Key highlights of the PAC report include:

  • In 2022-23, 62.7% of callers waited more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser, up from 46.3% in 2021-22.
  • At £814bn in 2022-23, tax revenues are at “a record high”, but HMRC still fell £2bn short of its £36bn target for compliance yield.
  • The number of criminal prosecutions by HMRC fell to 240 in 2022-23 from 691 in 2019-20.

The PAC also voiced its concern that HMRC needed “sufficient checks to protect taxpayers from being pursued too forcefully”. 

The committee further rounded on HMRC for “not taking seriously enough the distress caused to innocent citizens” when, for instance, companies use the wrong address to register their business. One particular case involved a taxpayer receiving more than 10,000 letters due to an agent registering companies for VAT at the taxpayer’s address rather than a serviced office that shared the same postcode. 

The committee said it had “repeatedly” raised this particular case but HMRC had been unable to prevent further letters being sent out to the wrong address, “including demands for payments”. 

“Even now, HMRC cannot guarantee further letters will not be sent,” the PAC said.

Further, the committee said: “We are not convinced that customers have an easily accessible and responsive route via which they can raise concerns about HMRC’s debt collection activities,” the committee said. Among its recommendations was that HMRC establish “a clear, easily accessible route” for taxpayers to report issues they face when dealing with debt collection agencies working on behalf of HMRC. Also, the committee said, HMRC must report back to them with a summary of “any issues raised and how HMRC has dealt with them”. 

Despite its strong criticism of HMRC, the report was described as “disappointing” for the contracting sector by Crawford Temple, CEO of Professional Passport, an assessor of payment intermediary compliance. 

“Whilst the report does reference HMRC taking action against promoting [tax avoidance] schemes, it has failed to recognise the importance of the use of data that HMRC already holds to identify these schemes quickly,” he said. “It also fails the contractors duped into these arrangements by not holding HMRC firmly to account on action against promoters rather than contractors.

“PAC exists to hold government departments to account so it is frustrating to see such a lack and depth of understanding that once again allows HMRC off the hook, rather than being challenged on its actions and performance.”

The full report can be accessed here.

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27 February 2024

NEW TO THE MARKET: 26 FEBRUARY-1 MARCH 2024

• Workforce solutions and recruitment specialist Hays has partnered with tech firm Multiverse to co-create an apprenticeship academy. Hays is working with Multiverse to co-deliver the ‘Data Analysis and Business Transformation Academy’, which empowers undiscovered talent with skills such as data analytics, communication, machine learning and project management, through level 4 apprenticeships. Those who successfully join the academy are paid during the initial training period, which is front-loaded into a 10–12-week intensive bootcamp at the start of the apprenticeship.

After completing the bootcamp, individuals will work at Hays’ partner organisations for the remainder of their apprenticeship, gaining accelerated experience within a variety of different markets whilst delivering impact and transformation for the organisations they are deployed with. Each apprentice taking part in the academy will also have the opportunity to go on to gain further qualifications and secure a £10k bonus upon successfully completing the 2-year programme.

• Workforce solutions specialist SRG, powered by Impellam Group, has launched SRG Ireland. SRG Ireland will operate via expert in-country teams based in Dublin and Cork, and offer an agile workforce and specialist life sciences recruitment solutions. This expansion of the specialist recruiter for life science candidates in the UK, Europe and North America is designed to support local talent and global customers.

Wave has relaunched its brand for candidate attraction solutions business. The firm says the relaunch helps to showcase its commitment to help recruitment agencies attract “top-tier candidates quickly and effortlessly”.

13 February 2024

Unify launches to enhance diversity across financial and professional services

Unify is focused on enhancing workplace diversity and addressing systemic imbalances within the financial and professional services sector.

According to a company statement, the name Unify embodies its core purpose: to foster a sense of cohesion and collaboration, regardless of barriers to entry such as socioeconomic background, disability, gender, ethnicity, education, age or neurodiversity.

“Unify understands that the greatest value-add to any organisation is in increasing the supply of high-performing, diverse talent,” founder and CEO Karaolis told Recruiter. “Building Unify has been an exciting journey, allowing me to seamlessly blend purpose and passion with my career. At Unify, we strive to create a space that fosters meaningful connection and professional growth, regardless of who you are or what background you come from. 

“In the future, I hope that Unify is the recruitment partner of choice when creating an inclusive working environment and building diverse, high-performing teams within your organisation.”

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