As part of a wider analysis of the time and cost impact of compliance on the recruitment industry, Engage Technology Partners has found a concerning trend in administrative tasks impacting the time recruiters have available for relationship building and business development
According to the recruitment software provider, the increased complexity surrounding contractor compliance such as right-to-work checks has created an administrative burden on recruiters that is impacting their capacity to develop the meaningful relationships that make firms so successful. This is a sentiment echoed by Paul Wheeler, Group IT Manager at Premier Group:
“We identified more than three years ago that our consultants were spending too much time gathering compliance information for workers to go on site. We wanted to free up this time for our consultants to spend building business relationships and sourcing high quality candidates for the market, ultimately generating us more revenue.”
According to Drey Francis, Director at Engage Technology Partners, this situation will only intensify over time:
“The complexities of the various valid right to work scenarios, public (and soon private sector) off-payroll rules, divergence of employment status for employment and tax legislation are adding to the compliance burden. With compliance and regulation for contract and freelance professionals becoming increasingly complex as authorities seek to control this flexible workforce, recruiters are often shouldering the responsibility of information checks. However, while many firms are seeking to simply stay ahead of requirements now, in the long-term this level of administrative burden will only damage a firm’s business critical relationships unless they either hire additional resources to manage processes or automate unnecessary tasks.”